


All This Jealousy Was Built To Burn

by BlueSkyeEyes



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men (Movieverse), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Character Development, Coming of Age, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Happy Ending, M/M, Underage Drinking, bobby is closeted, bright future, development driven, heavy kissing, john is an asshole, mentions of scott/jean/logan love triangle, set from pre-x1 through x1 and x2, this was never supposed to be so long, x-men alternate future
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-16
Updated: 2018-04-16
Packaged: 2019-04-23 21:46:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 26,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14341557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueSkyeEyes/pseuds/BlueSkyeEyes
Summary: The problem with Bobby is that he always wants to believe the best in John, no matter what.





	All This Jealousy Was Built To Burn

**THE SPARK  
**

“We’re _the next generation_ ,” Bobby says in a too-serious voice. The tone is at odds with the goofy expression on his face, cheek dented from laying against the metal A/C grate on the floor for so long. Bobby never did well in the warm, humid nights of summer. “Destined to save the world and have incredible adventures and, I don’t know, go to college maybe.”

“That’s stupid as shit.” John replies, pulling the half-empty bottle of jack from Bobby’s limp fingers. It’s only ten o’clock and Bobby’s already waxing poetic about the X-Men. He’s had enough to drink.

“College isn’t stupid, John. Lots of people go to college. Lots ‘n lots. Scott went to college.” Bobby says it like that means anything, like John should immediately jump up and start filling out applications to whatever shitty community college he could have a dream of getting into just because _Scott Summers went to college_.

He drops his head against the wall next to the open window, enjoying the warm breeze that floats in from the garden. In the distance he can hear Kitty and Piotr chatting about something, but he’s not drunk enough to care about listening in.

“That wasn’t the stupid part.” John tells him.

“Oh. Well…we _are_ going to save the world, you know. We’ll be X-Men in a year. Two years. I don’t know. They can’t keep us in training much longer. Can they?” The A/C unit shuts off with a whir, and Bobby groans. “I don’t want to die without being an X-Man.”

John snorts. “You’re not going to die; the stupid thing will turn back on in a couple minutes. Either sit by the window or shut up.”

Bobby drags himself off the floor and collapses onto the chest of drawers John’s sitting on under the window. He watches John take a few swigs from the open bottle but doesn’t ask for it back. Maybe he’s noticed how shit-faced he is. John hopes so. Fighting with a drunk Bobby is never a good time.

“I’m serious.” Bobby says after a minute. With his eyes closed he looks asleep, but that was clearly too much to hope for.

John wracks his brain to remember what they’d been talking about. “I’m sure you are.”

“No, really. We’ll be X-Men soon, and then we’ll have suits and names and we’ll save people. I just wanna do that.”

It’s a sentiment John can’t relate to. He’s never thought about saving other people—he’s never felt the loyalty necessary to _want_ to save someone other than himself. He doesn’t tell Bobby this.

“As long as I don’t have to wear that stupid fucking yellow leather costume, I’m in.” John says. “But you do know I’m going to save twice as many people as you, right?”

Perhaps it was his sixteen-year-old bravado that drove him to one-up Bobby, or the fact that Bobby’s laugh makes his chest burn in a way that isn’t totally unpleasant (a fact he’s been ignoring for well over two weeks now), but he aims a sharp kick at Bobby’s shin and repeats himself without thinking too hard about it.

“I said I’m going to save twice as many people as you are, _Frosty the Snowman_ . People will build statues to honor me for all the good shit I’m going to do. _Shit_.” He sets the bottle down carefully next to Bobby and wipes at the alcohol that spilled onto his shirt when he started to laugh. Maybe he’s over his limit now, too.

“I heard you.” Bobby says serenely, eyes still closed. “I was gonna let you think you could. Thought maybe you could use th’ ego boots. Boost. Whatever.”

John contemplates the pros and cons of torching him.

“Hey,” He says before John can decide. “Do you want to go skating? Kitty and Piotr want to go skating, _don’t you guys_?” Bobby yells the last part out the window. From the corner of his eye John can see Kitty jump so violently he’d swear her feet left the ground. He’s too far away to see her face, but if he had to guess he’d say she was probably blushing. Interesting.

“Don’t we guys do what?” Piotr calls back.

“Do you want to go skating with us? I’m gonna ice the fountain.” Bobby says. He hasn’t waited for John to agree, like he assumes John’ll just go along with whatever he suggests.

John kind of hates that he’s right.

“Right now? Why not.” Kitty says, shock gone. John assumes it has something to do with being caught in the garden with a boy late at night, but he’s not exactly the the expert on how good girls behave.

Bobby whoops and clamors out the door, their conversation forgotten.

It takes almost twenty minutes to get everyone into skates and out on the ice, but it’s worth it once they do. Kitty and Bobby are the only two who have any idea what they’re doing, but in his drunk-happy state John doesn’t mind that he keeps stumbling. Bobby always catches him anyway.

By the time morning rolls around, nothing they’d said the night before feels important enough to bring up again, but John can’t help feeling like it's a moment he'll never get back.

 

* * *

 

The X-Men fit them for flight suits not long after--for _training_ , they’re told, they aren’t nearly ready enough to go on missions. But it still feels like a victory.

Bobby is elated for the rest of the week, huge grin in place and positive attitude impossible to squash. John tries several times, but it gets him nowhere. Bobby’s just _happy_ , sunshine spilling from somewhere deep inside that John doesn’t understand. His own insides are a dark, unfillable pit that brews venom and hate. There is no happiness inside of him.

Kitty and Piotr are fitted for their own, as well as Theresa and Jubilee, and Bobby starts making plans for what they’re going to name their team. The suggestions rank from laughable to downright horrid, not that John has anything better to offer up.

“No way, we are _not_ calling ourselves _The X-Babies_. That’s terrible!” Jubilee declares, tossing a handful of pretzels from the bowl on the floor of the rec room at no one in particular.

“How do we even know we’re going to end up on the same team, anyway? Maybe they’ll take a couple of us for the main team with Scott and Storm, and then the rest of us get to be reserves.” Kitty says, shooting Bobby a furtive look. “We all know who they’d pick, anyway.”

John knows what she means. They wanted real powerhouses like Bobby and Piotr, people who could hold their own in a fight. They weren't looking for kids like her with powers better suited to search and rescue. A tiny voice in the back of his head tells him that they wouldn’t want him, either. He’s too volatile, still too in awe of his own abilities. He’s supposed to control the flame, not let it drive him.

He’s heard it all.

“I’m okay to be on the reserves,” Theresa says. John wants to snort. She’s still afraid of her own voice, of course she’d want to stay away from the action.

“Like you would be. Your uncle trained you really well before you even got here.” Jubilee says. “They’d take you in a heartbeat. Sonic screaming is way more useful than fireworks. Not as cool though.” Sparks flicker across her fingertips as if proving her point. They all laugh, not because it’s funny, but because they’re supposed to.

None of them want to admit that they’re taking the conversation far more seriously than they’re pretending.

“I want to fight with the real X-Men.” Bobby says casually, face betraying how eager he is.

“We will all get there one day, no longer left at the kiddie table, as they say. We must just train first, become one with our powers.” Piotr says, always the voice of calm perseverance.

“What about you? What do you want?” Theresa asks. It takes John a moment to realize she’s talking to him. He grins in the sharp way he knows drives girls crazy.

“Me? I just want to make it to graduation.”

 

* * *

 

 

Summer starts winding down, and the mansion gets busier. Kids start to come back for classes, and the teachers begin their mad dash to get everything ready for the start of term. It’s almost funny to watch for the first week, and then less funny when he remembers he’s going to have to sit through their classes after break ends.

Bobby spends more time than not draped across the A/C unit in their room, moaning about the weather. John’s tempted to unplug the thing and see how long his friend can last, but he’s not quite that cruel.

He does, however, start suggesting that Bobby take cold showers around mid-day to cool himself off. He’s not sure who it’s helping, because now he has to suffer through his roommate flinging himself around the room wearing even less than before, and Bobby is still miserable anyway, but it’s his only move.

“Why don’t you eat a fucking popsicle or something? Or is that too much like cannibalism for your tastes?” John says. He’s not even trying to hide his smirk.

Bobby mumbles something from across the room.

“What was that?”

“I said FUCK YOU.” Bobby says louder, but it lacks heat. Surprising, since heat seems to be all he has these days.

“Mature, Drake, really mature. Do you need me to call your mother and have her drive over to put a cold washcloth on your forehead?” John picks up the small rubber ball Bobby has on his bookshelf and starts tossing it at the spot on the wall directly over Bobby’s head. It’s annoying--it’s _supposed_ to be annoying—but Bobby doesn’t even flinch as it smacks against the wall.

“’M too hot to talk back.”

Okay, John would just have to try harder, then.

“Yeah,” He continues like he’d never stopped talking. “Your mom probably couldn’t do much anyway. I should call Summers, he’d appreciate playing nursemaid. It would give him something to do around here.”

Bobby’s head shot up with a scowl. “Scott has plenty to do around here, he’s practically the Professor’s right-hand man, after Storm. He’s way too important for babysitting.”

Teasing Summers always got a reaction out of Bobby. It was no secret that he felt a sort of hero-worship for the older man, and Summers in turn treated Bobby like a younger brother, so it was natural that they were defensive of each other.

It was also natural that John exploit that fact at every opportunity.

“Sure, sure. That’s why I saw him trailing after Doctor Grey yesterday, looking like a lost puppy. I mean, what’s he even doing teaching us if he can’t control his powers any better than we can?” John waves his hand casually, like he really can’t see what his comments are doing to Bobby. “Annnnd least important X-Man award goes to—drum roll please—Scott Summers!”

Bobby’s on him in a flash, headbutting him backwards off the bed. The collision with the floor hurts a little, but his victory at having gotten a rise out of Bobby beats the small bit of pain any day.

“Take it back!” Bobby yells, looking every bit as frustrated as John’s ever seen him. He’s not sure why he enjoys this so much, but he can’t bring himself to even worry about getting hit. Bobby always pulls his punches anyway.

“What if it’s true? I’ll let you up if you admit it’s true.” John bargains. Bobby stares down at him in confusion.

“Wha— _Woah_!”

He catches Bobby off guard with a sweep of the leg, knocking him flat on his back.

“See? Now admit it. Scott’s useless regardless of how big your crush on him is.”

Bobby gets in a good blow to the ribs before John pins his arms down.

“I do NOT have a crush on SCOTT!” Bobby yells at him. “Get OFF of me.” He kicks at John’s shins with a vengeance.

“I’m barely on you, calm the fuck down. All you have to do is admit that I’m right. Glasses is useless.” John elbows him sharply in the chin to get him to stop moving.

“I’m not admitting _anything_.” Bobby’s face has been turning steadily redder and redder since they started scuffling, and he’s beginning to resemble an over-ripe tomato.

Suddenly his eyes light up, and without warning he breaks his wrists free of John’s grip and plants them firmly on John's shoulders.

“ _KITTY_ ! _JUBES_ ! I’M BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY A— _Mpph_.”

John slams a hand over his mouth with a glare. “The fuck was that, popsicle? You don’t get to play dirty.”

Bobby says something that sounds like, “Hwm pfs fo plrmph drmte.”

John relaxes his grasp slightly and Bobby repeats himself.

“How’s this for playing dirty?”

All too soon (and probably expectedly, if John's being honest, because this is Bobby and he's only got like, three moves, tops) there’s a too-cold tongue pressed against his fingers like an ice cube, sending cold shocks down his spine. _Damn it_ , if he gets frostbite because he wanted to make fun of Summers he’ll never forgive the man.

“ _Shit_. Bobby, that is so not fair.” He gasps. But he’s too determined to win to remove his hand, no matter how cold it’s getting. Not for the first time he wishes he could create the fire instead of just controlling it.

Beneath his hand, he can feel Bobby’s mouth stretching into a grin.

There's a clatter, loudly, near the door, and the sound of a person saying something quiet. John looks up in time to see Kitty leap through the door into their room, looking at first alarmed and then confused. She blinks at them from where they’re sprawled behind John’s bed.

“So…You’re not really being kidnapped or anything.”

Bobby and John lock eyes for a moment, before cracking up.

“No he’s not—it’s just—Summers—and then, no really, it’s funny—we just—” John howls.

“I hit him in the ribs for it—it’s so—seriously, I’m cracking up—He thinks—” Bobby cries.

Kitty gives them both a thumbs up. “Cool, cool. So I’m going to go and not try to figure out what you two think is so funny.”

She phases back through the door, shaking her head the whole way. For some reason, it makes them both laugh harder.

“Okay, you have to let me up now, I have laundry to do.” Bobby says when they’ve calmed down enough to breathe again.

John reluctantly removes his hand and stands up. “This isn’t over, icicle.”

Bobby flips him off and heads for the laundry room.

John tries to ignore it, but his hand tingles for the rest of the night. He’s not sure what it means, so it feels much easier to pretend it’s not there.

 

**SPARK MEETS TINDER**

 

Rogue arrives, and things start to change.

It’s subtle, at first, but by the time a month has gone by nothing is the same.

Jubilee slowly stops inviting herself along places, fading out into the background until she’s no longer part of their group. John thinks Rogue makes her uncomfortable the way Rogue makes him uncomfortable, but it’s obvious she doesn’t want to talk about it.

The man Rogue brought with her, Logan, seems to occupy a weird in-between space of not quite a teacher and not quite a student that they’ve never had before, and it makes everyone uneasy. He’s an outsider to all of them, except Rogue, who insists on inviting him to eat with them and train with them.

He always declines but having the offer on the table makes everyone uncomfortable. Or perhaps John’s just reading into things.

Bobby is the worst, though. He’s different around Rogue, and not in a good way. He seems desperate for her attention, eager to please her in the sickening way John always teases Summers and Doctor Grey for.

John’s pretty sure Rogue isn’t interested—he can read girls like her better than he can do just about anything—but that doesn’t mean he’s not bothered by the attention anyway.

She and John hate each other at first (sharp-edged words immediately clashing with each other) and then they don’t. It takes a few weeks of trading barbs, but it’s undeniable that shooting insults at each other is much more fun than glaring at each other from across a room, and they fall into an uneasy trio, with Bobby always in the middle of everything, his words and his actions loud and inclusive as if to distract them from remembering that they don’t get along.

John hates it because he always hates new people, because he’s used to spending time with Bobby alone, or with their little group of friends, and never as a part of a _trio_ before, and he likes it because Rogue at least seems to sympathize with him about Bobby’s more sunshine-y behaviors.

He’s just getting used to having her around when she’s gone.

The mansion goes into chaos trying to find her, rumors that she tried to kill Logan and then disappeared with his powers abuzz all through the school. John believes about half of what he hears, and less of what people tell him.

Bobby insists she was just saving her own life, not that John asked his opinion. He’s desperate to find her, bothering the teachers and the Professor for updates on her whereabouts despite John’s attempts to get him to stop.

(“Seriously, what’s so important about finding this girl? If she doesn’t want to be here she doesn’t need to be here.” “She _ran away_ , John, she has to have a _reason_. We can’t just leave her out there thinking nobody wants her to come back.” “Whatever.”)

They find her at the Statue of Liberty or some shit, with Magneto, who John knows he’s been warned about, but can’t remember exactly why.

Bobby looks like he’s about to cry when he hears and begs to go with the team when they try to save her.

John wants to smack him.

She might be his self-decided _people_ now, but that doesn’t mean his face is the first she wants to see after whatever this weird runaway-attempt-slash-kidnapping was.  

“ _I’m_ _ready_!” Bobby swears, John behind him vehemently shaking his head no. “ _I want to help you save her, she means something to me, too_.”

They don’t take him.

They don’t take any of the kids, and they nearly die anyway, but they free Rogue in the end, and Magneto ends up in some plastic prison far away where none of them have to think about him ever again.

Except Rogue still has nightmares, and Bobby can’t look the members of the staff in the eyes, and John gets so fed up with the tension that he wants to punch something.

“ _I should have been there_ .” Bobby whispers the night she comes home in Logan’s arms, hair streaked with white and skin pasty. “ _I’m her friend and I should have been there to save her.”_

John doesn’t know how to comfort him.

 

* * *

 

It isn’t long after that when Bobby starts to change.

It happens slowly, when Rogue returns, the first time he’s faced with a problem he can’t fix somehow. John watches the way he looks at Rogue with fascination—no, fascination isn’t the right word. It’s something deeper, something that tells him Bobby sees her in a way John doesn’t, and likes what he sees.

It isn’t an immediate reaction, there’s no one moment he can pinpoint the change occurring, but Bobby looks different by the time she’s up and walking around after the disaster on Ellis Island. He doesn’t try to explain away why she left, and he doesn’t try to comfort her with reassurances that _they’d be X-Men soon_ and _they would be the ones saving people from things like this_.

He just tells her he’s sorry.

It’s mature, sure, but it’s also so not like naive and endlessly optimistic Bobby he knows. For how often he complained about Bobby, one would think John would be happier to see the difference. He’s not.

He doesn’t ask Bobby about it. He doesn’t want to know what’s changed. The burn in his chest has started to feel less like a friend.

They stake out the rec room most days, because they’re the older kids and they get dibs, and Rogue has been on the run long enough to have missed most of the good movies of the season. Bobby seems to take an immense amount of pride in being able to guess which movies Rogue will like and which ones she won’t.

He’s always reluctant to believe that she wants to watch the slasher flicks John forgets to put back in the case, nose wrinkling in confusion as they bond over something he can’t understand. It’s the one time John feels more connected to Rogue than Bobby is, when they’re sharing amused glances over a bowl of popcorn at Bobby’s expense.

That doesn’t stop Bobby from wanting more, though. He sits closer to Rogue than she wants him to, offers to carry her books to class, invites her out to see all his favorite places. That last one always ends the exact same way: with Bobby looking dejected but hopeful and Rogue excusing herself to find Logan.

John finds himself mouthing along with the script they’ve worn out. He has this particular episode of the RogueandBobby show memorized.

“--That’s awful nice of you, Bobby, but I can’t. I promised Logan I’d help him with his bike tonight.” Rogue looks apologetic, but John can read the discomfort in her eyes. Or maybe he’s projecting again.

“Oh. That’s ok

ay, maybe another night. I’m free this weekend, and I was thinking about going into town,” Bobby says. He hasn’t noticed John making faces next to him.

“Yeah, maybe. We’ll see.” Rogue agrees. “I don’t know what I have goin’ on, Logan might want to train.”

John can recite the line practically word for word.

The disc menu music repeats, then, and John clears his throat to remind the other two he’s still there and still wants to get on with the show.

“Are we watching this, or what?” He says, not even bothering to keep the annoyance out of his tone.

They both startle a little, like they'd forgotten he was there.

“Yes, of course. I’ll, uh, just find the remote.” Bobby says. He avoids eye contact with the both of them until the movie starts playing.

But he still wedges himself into the middle of the couch next to Rogue, so John hardly counts it as a win.

 

* * *

 

“She’s never going to go for you, you know that, right?” He hisses in Bobby’s ear later, voice hidden under a particularly loud explosion. She was too angry, too flighty, too distrusting of herself and of the people around them. She reminded John of himself when he’d first come to the mansion two years ago, as much as he hates to acknowledge the similarities.

“You don’t know that.” Bobby whispers back with a frown, arms folded over his chest. Before John interrupted him, he’d been trying to offer Rogue some of his blanket, but she kept sliding it back off her lap.

John feels a little vindictively pleased that his words have shaken Bobby enough to get him to stop.

“I do know that, because whether you like it or not, I know Rogue better than you do.” He’s rewarded by silence from the seat next to him.

 

* * *

 

It strikes John one day that he and Bobby might never see the world in the same way. Bobby’s still so convinced he can save it, and John’s just content to not burn with it.

Bobby worries about their friends, emotions that John’s never really understood. They’re the same age, equally as capable thanks to their abilities and the mandatory training sessions they go through. Why on earth should he spend time being concerned about them--time that could just as easily go towards pursuing other interests. He doesn’t have anything in mind just yet, but he won’t want that time taken up when he comes up with something.

“It’s just...we’re all so vulnerable these days, you know? If there really is a cure out there.” Bobby says. The way he won’t meet John’s eyes means he thinks the cure does exist.

John thinks it’s bullshit. There’s no way powerful mutants like the Professor and Magneto who have their hands in all aspects of politics wouldn’t have found a way to stop that by now.

“There’s not a cure. And it’s not like any of our friends would be targeted anyway. They’re all passing.” John says with a shrug. They’re laying on their beds, not quite facing each other, but close enough to hear each other without having to raise their voices at all. It makes the conversation feel oddly private.

“All of your friends, maybe.” Bobby scoffs. John’s not sure if he’s being called exclusionary to the kids with physical mutations, or if Bobby’s telling him off for not having a lot of friends. He decides to ignore it.  “But it doesn’t matter if they’re our friends or not. They’re _people_ , John. That should be enough to want to save them.”

John guesses that makes sense. Maybe. Bobby certainly seems to believe he’s right, and honestly Summers would probably tear up a little if he heard the things Bobby was saying, so it’s not like there’s anyone around to keep Bobby from running off with insane ideas for no reason.

“Okay, so protest the cure. Carry signs, and sign petitions, and petition the government. Whatever the shit those activists on Capitol Hill are always bragging about doing.” John shrugs, interest in the conversation dwindling to zero.

“I don’t know if I would say they’re _bragging_ , exactly, but…” Bobby says, and John’s interest shoots down to negative seven. “Never mind, that’s not the important part. I just don’t know if I should be the one making that decision. What if somebody out there voluntarily wants to take the cure, and I’m out there condemning it, and they think they shouldn’t do it even if it would make their life a lot better.”

John raises an eyebrow, and Bobby scrambles to explain himself, eyes darting around the room.

“I just mean that maybe there’s someone out there who has a really dangerous mutation, or a seriously inconvenient mutation like a fish face, and they want the cure so they can live a better life. Maybe they just want to feel like they fit in with their family again. I don’t know.” Bobby’s cheeks have started to turn pink, and John wants to roll his eyes at the back-and-forth of Bobby’s argument. Seriously, what side is he even on?

Not that John’s picked a side either, but that’s different.

Bobby’s panic on the topic is the only thing keeping John from having a real opinion about it, because he doesn’t need another reason to fight with Bobby right now, and he’s pretty sure he’d fall pretty firmly on the side of _fuck the cure_ if he thought about it.

“Why do you care so much? You won’t need the cure. Your family loves you. And your mutation kicks ass.” John asks eventually, fed up of the nail-biting.

Bobby’s quiet long enough for him to assume he’s not getting an answer, and he’s already tossing his hands up and backing off when his roommate responds.

“Because some people do need the cure, and maybe it isn’t fair to tell them they can’t take it just because you wouldn’t take it. I mean, I know that there’s always the danger that people would use it against us without our consent, and try to _fix_ us or something, but I don’t think the positive benefits should be completely written off because it might be dangerous.” Bobby still won’t meet his eyes, and John thinks he knows why.

This is about Rogue again, because it’s always about fucking _Rogue_ —and that play of words is as accurate as it is annoying.

And boy is it annoying.

“So what? Let people do what they want, who cares. It’s their life.” He ignores the gnawing in his gut. He suddenly hates the cure more than he’d ever realized.

“Exactly, that’s what I’m thinking. It’s just such a complicated topic.” Bobby says, attention back on whatever he has playing on his laptop.

John rolls his eyes. “Are you always gonna be like this? 'Cause nobody else around here worries about the dumb stuff you worry about. Except for Summers, maybe. You can relax, Drake. The world won't end without you trying to solve its problems.”

Bobby smiles back but he doesn’t look convinced.

 

* * *

 

 

Kitty’s birthday marks the beginning of the end of the year. Because her birthday falls on November sixth, followed closely by Piotr’s on the 27th, and then Jubilee’s on the twelfth of December, they usually spend the two-month period eating cake and passing around presents, but this year is different.

For one thing, Jubilee is still avoiding them, and the idea of trying to celebrate without her feels cheap. At least, that’s what Bobby and Kitty declare when the subject of birthdays is brought up by Summers.

John personally couldn’t care less if they spend one fewer day cuddled together pretending everything’s great. Besides, he has a feeling someone will find a way to get a cake for at least one of them, so it’s not like they’ll be going cold turkey on birthdays.

Rogue is still new to their traditions, and as much as John wants to make jabs at her for being the last to know these things, she’s really trying. He hates how impressed he is by her effort.

“What should we get Kitty?” Rogue asks one day. She’s sitting cross-legged on the couch waiting for Bobby to come back with the popcorn he promised to make and is probably burning. John’s sitting on the floor pretending not to care if he comes back, setting a DVD case on fire.

He doesn’t realize she’s asked him a question until she smacks him on the shoulder, causing the flame he’d been carefully running along the edge of the movie case to sputter out.

“Shit—what? Oh. Uh, I don’t know. I’m not exactly the expert on all things Kitty. Ask Bobby, they’re close. Or Piotr, I’m sure he knows her pretty well by now,” John smirks at that one, trying not to enjoy the look of confusion that flashes across Rogue’s face. He’s teasing, mostly, because while he and Jubilee might have a bet about when Kitty and Piotr are going to start dating, it’s no done deal yet.

“Better yet, ask Theresa. Nobody knows you better than your roommate.” He says.

“I wouldn’t know.” Her voice sounds small enough that he’s suddenly curious what her face must look like. It’s awkward to drop his head back on the couch cushions and stare up at her, but he does it anyway. If it bothers her, she can deal with it.

She’s not even looking at him.

“Oh, right. They couldn’t give you a roommate because of the…” John makes _woo-woo_ wiggly gestures with his fingers to indicate her powers.

“No.” She doesn’t elaborate, and he doesn’t care enough to ask. He’s only really talking to her now because Bobby could come back at any moment, and it would be weirder if they weren’t talking.

But she tells him anyway, like she’s mostly saying it to hear herself say the words and not because she wants him to know. “Because of the nightmares. They aren’t—they aren’t mine, not mostly. Sometimes they are, about the thing with Magneto, but,” She sighs. “Mostly they’re Logan’s. I guess that’s what I get for havin’ a seriously fuckin’ old war hero in my head, right?”

John doesn’t know how to respond, but he doesn’t think she really wants him to anyway.

This isn’t a conversation she’s supposed to be having with him.

He can feel her eyes on him, waiting for some answer or snark-filled comment she surely knows he stockpiles. But it feels wrong to mouth off if she's expecting it.

Instead he tosses the DVD case into her lap, burned edge first, and shrugs. “Get her something that’ll remind her of home. Ice skates, or some book set in Chicago, or whatever.”

“Oh,” She looks at him like she’s meeting somebody new. The smile she gives him is different than the one he usually sees, and he has a feeling it’s the first time he’s ever really seen her smile. “Okay. Thanks. I’ll do that.”

He’s not sure what just happened, but by the time he wraps his head around the fact that keeping his mouth shut has changed something between them, Bobby’s plopping down onto the couch behind him, slightly overcooked popcorn spilling from the bowl in his hands and landing on John.

John tosses the kernels back and grapples with the thought that maybe Rogue wouldn't be quite so hard to get along with if he just tried to like her.

 

* * *

 

Jubilee breaks her silence before the rest of them do.

It catches John off guard when she corners him in the garden, face deliberately sullen and arms folded. He blinks at her.

She blinks back.

They stand like that for several minutes before he gets bored and turns to go.

“No, _wait_! Don’t—just give me a minute, okay?” She says. She’s dressed down, no crazy sunglasses or bright jackets or anything.

He reluctantly complies.

“I wanted to know if you guys were doing anything for Kitty and Piotr’s birthdays. I thought maybe I could…I guess I thought I could come celebrate with you guys for a little while, if you don’t mind.” She’s staring hard at the thicket of trees behind his head, just off to the right of making eye contact. It’s clever, but not clever enough to fool him.

“You do know Rogue will be there, right?” John says, trying to subtly shift over into her line of sight. He wants to know how dedicated she is to this.

“Yeah, of course Rogue is going to be there. She’s your friend. She’s Kitty’s friend.” Jubilee waves a hand dismissively. “So. Am I invited to whatever it is you have planned, or what? Seriously, John, this is a _tradition_. I cannot miss this.”

The kids who’d come to the mansion from loving homes all dealt with the separation in the same way: with the fierce insistence that things had to be like home. Traditions were one way they did that—for Bobby and Jubilee birthdays were a big thing, Kitty had to have Hanukah just _so_ every year, and Piotr apparently kept his room exactly the same as his room back in Russia.

John had to wonder if Jubilee didn’t care more about the birthday thing than any of the rest of them because she didn’t have a home or a family to go back to.

Sucks to suck, but John had always thought a person was better off losing their parents _before_ they had a chance to learn how shitty they actually were.

“Do you think you can handle coming and spending that much time with us if she’s gonna be there, though? It’d be better for you to not come at all than to have you duck out part way through.” John says, surveying her carefully. This is the moment when her body language means more than anything she says.

He’s not expecting to find confusion there.

“Wait, what? I’m not ducking out anywhere, I’m asking to _come_. What a dick move that would be, begging to be invited somewhere and then just flaking.” She regards him coolly with a snap of her gum. “So am I in or am I out, Marshmallow, just give it to me straight.”

“Okay…” He nods slowly, trying to figure out what’s suddenly changed to make her so cool with Rogue.

“Spill it, Allerdyce, I don’t have all day. Why are you making confused duck faces at me?”

Confused…what? Sometimes she could be fucking _difficult._

“You know, because you’ve hated Rogue for months, but now all of a sudden you want to hang out with her? Did you finally get tired of having zero friends?” He’s deflecting and he knows it, but she should have expected it when she decided to come to him out of all of them.

Jubilee laughs. It’s not a nice sound.

“Hold up. You think _Rogue_ is why I stopped hanging out with you guys? _You guys_ were why I stopped hanging out with you guys. It just so happened to be right when Rogue showed up.” She says. She’s stopped snapping her gum, and he’s not sure if silence is worse than the insistent popping or not.

“Okay. Great. Fuck, why are you asking to come back then, Princess? Just get over yourself and do it. Who fucking cares?” He says. He’s spiraling now, trying to find some familiar ground to stand on in this conversation.

“I care, John! Maybe you guys need to get over yourselves. Rogue isn’t the only person affected by you and Bobby fighting over her.” Jubilee wears anger well, eyes bright and jaw tense. John thinks it’s because of the fire she carries inside, always quick to spark.

He usually welcomes the burn, knowing it brings the promise of a fight or an adventure. Today? He wants to put her out with a bucket of cold water.

“ _That’s_ what this is about? You think Bobby and I are stuck in some kind of weird YA novel love triangle with Rogue in the middle of it and you got jealous? That’s so fucked up, Jubilee! Ignoring the fact that neither of us would ever want to date you, I’m not secretly in love with Rogue. And neither is Bobby, even if he thinks he is.”

She huffs and tosses her hands up in the air. “Of course that’s not what it’s about! I’m not an idiot, I know you’re not in love with Rogue.”

Something about the way she looks at him as she says that makes his skin crawl. Whatever she’s acting like she knows, he doesn’t like it.

“Great. This was a productive chat, thanks so much. I’m gonna go, ‘cause I don't want to talk to you anymore. Consider this your official _dis_ -invitation to the celebration.” He can feel the sting of the lighter digging into the palm of his clenched fist, and he doesn’t remember deciding to pull it out, but walking away before he tries to set her on fire with it seems like a smart option. The smell would hang around the garden for ages.

And he might also still be slightly fond of her, regardless of any accusations she might’ve tried making towards him recently, but he’d be damned if he admitted that now.

She scoffs, nodding her head up and down like he’s just proved her point. “This! This is exactly why I stopped being friends with you guys. You don’t like something I say and you cut and run. Yeah, it’s way easier to leave you than wait around for you to leave me. Go on, run away to pretend everything’s great in _BFF_ \- _land_.”

He stalks out of the garden, middle finger thrown up behind him as a final goodbye. _Fuck her_.

 

**A FOREST FIRE IS BORN  
**

 

Bobby asks him for help studying his notes for a quiz in one of Jean’s classes the week after, and John re-purposes a familiar game they used to play: for every question Bobby gets wrong with the flashcards, John gets to ask him something personal and invasive.

The game had started back when John first arrived at the mansion, with him getting to ask Bobby a question for every correct answer he guessed. They’d used it as a way of bribing him up to speed in his classes, because for some reason he’d found Bobby endlessly fascinating back then, his life so alien, and—okay, maybe a little bit of it was about seeing how hard he could get Bobby to blush when he asked particularly obscene questions, but it had worked.

“What is emphysema?”

“Lung disease that makes it difficult to breathe. Next.”

“How does the heart react to stress?”

“Badly. It makes your heart speed up. Give me a hard one.”

John considers the cards for a moment.

“What year did they stop performing Lobotomies in the U.S.?”

Bobby draws in a breath and squints at the card in John’s hand, as if staring at it hard enough would allow him to see the answer written on the other side.

“In…The 1970’s?”

“Gotta be more specific than that, Bobby-boy.” John says with a smirk.

“Okay, 1973?”

John clicks his tongue. “And you’re wrong. The answer was 1967. My turn. Why do you keep going after Rogue even if she keeps turning you down?” He drops the card onto the bedspread with a smirk. Apparently he wasn’t going to be pulling any punches tonight.

“Damn it. I-I don’t know, okay? She’s nice, I just want to hang out with her more.” Bobby says, gaze a little sullen where it’s focused on the ancient carpet of their bedroom floor. But he can’t lie, because those are the rules, and because John would never forgive him if he did.

“Okay. What is the primary cause of a heart attack?” John asks, because what can he say in response to that?

Bobby shakes his head, clearly thrown off his game by John’s last non-study related question. “I—Uh, stress, maybe?”

John makes a noise like a buzzer going off.

“Shit, what was the right answer, then?” Bobby says, frown deepening.

But John doesn’t offer up any information. “Are you in love with her?” He asks, because Bobby’s the sappy sort of idiot who would believe in falling in love with some girl he’d just met a couple of months ago who wouldn’t even touch him. Who couldn’t touch him.

“ _No_. I don’t know. Maybe. I just want to spend time with her.” Bobby says, fiddling with one of the discarded flashcards.

John squints at him. “Do you even like girls?” It's an attempt to work Bobby up, because Bobby's always been more susceptible to questioning when he's flustered. But at the back of John's mind lays legitimate curiosity he's never dared to voice before, because he’s never once heard Bobby talk about girls the way he talks about Rogue—he hadn’t even really seemed to notice them before she showed up—and for all of John’s teasing about him having a crush on Scott, it would explain a lot of things.

“Yes! Of course I do, I lo—” Bobby catches a glimpse of the look on John’s face and stops, shrugging. “Okay fine, I don’t know. I’ve never actually kissed one or anything, so I don’t know. But I definitely don’t like guys.”

John considers this. He’d kind of suspected that Bobby was inexperienced in all areas, mostly because his friend couldn’t keep his mouth shut about anything exciting that happened to him, and a first kiss would definitely make the scale of _important_ . Besides this, Bobby has that slightly manic look he gets whenever John's pushing too far. It's the look that tells John he has to either go for gold, or back off immediately. It's the look that tells John he'll probably be making unwanted physical contact with Bobby's fist by the time the conversation is over.

John, being John, decides to go all in.

“How do you know?” It feels like a bad idea to ask, with John spurred on by Jubilee’s words and the desire to prove that Bobby’s not in love with Rogue. But John’s always been great at bad ideas, at lighting himself on fire and enjoying the sight of the flames burning down everyone and everything around him.

He raises his eyebrows at Bobby, a clear _I'm waiting_.

“I’m sorry, _what_?” Bobby splutters.

“How. Do. You. Know? Have you kissed a guy?” The answer is no, of course, because if Bobby hasn't kissed a girl he's definitely not had some secret gay love affair behind John's back. But he's kind of enjoying the way Bobby's eyes get wider each time he mentions the potential of Bobby liking guys.

Bobby looks like he’s about to start protesting, so John soldiers on. It’s too late to back out now. Even if he's not quite sure what game he's even playing anymore. “If you're going with the old _I don't know if I like girls, I haven't kissed one_ routine, then you don't get to say bullshit about not liking guys without kissing one. Your rules, Frosty, I'm just the enforcer.”

Bobby looks like he’s starting to regret initiating this study session. John can’t blame him.

“I—okay, I _guess_ I get what you're saying. But that doesn't change anything? I'm not g-into guys. And kissing one wouldn't change that. And anyway, where would I even _find_ a guy to….” He trails off, eyes fixed on John’s face as he turns scarlet. “Okay, _no_ . No no no. I am _not_ kissing you.”

It’s John’s turn to splutter as Bobby finally sits upright, moving to the farthest corner of the bed from where John is sitting.

“ _What_ ? That is so not what I was going to suggest, icicle, _Jesus_. I have no interest in taking part in your sexuality crisis. _God_.” His chest suddenly feels tight again. He ignores it.

He's starting to regret agreeing to this study session as much as Bobby is.

“Just...Go to a fucking gay club or something, someplace where nobody knows who you are and just. Kiss somebody.” John finishes with a cough. He's finally figured out why he started this conversation: he wants to die frozen in a block of ice. That is, if he can resist the urge to torch himself on the spot long enough for Bobby to kill him.

“No, that’s okay." Bobby's voice is pitched high, just another sign he's currently having a breakdown. Good job, John. "I’ll just—I’m not gay. I like girls. I like _Rogue_. I don’t need to kiss anybody to figure it out. Nobody’s a big enough freak to be both a mutant _and_ gay. You just got me freaked out over nothing, because you like working me up. This is your fault.” Bobby runs his hands through his hair and looks about two seconds away from dashing out of the room.

And that's the final straw for John. He might've felt bad for Bobby before, but now he's just angry at him. Having blame pushed off unfairly on the wrong person has always been a pet peeve of John's--no, more than that, it's an honest-to-god _complex_ at this point, and Bobby playing that game sends him spiraling completely off the cliff side of Bad Decisions he was teetering so precariously on before. If he does nothing else today, he'll get Bobby to admit he might not like girls. Through any means necessary.

“You might be gay, and it’s _my_ fault? Typical Bobby, always blaming other people for your problems.” John snaps back. The accusation stings more than a little, because as much as he likes pushing Bobby’s buttons, he would never purposefully cause his friend distress. He’s not _that_ much of an asshole.

“Stop talking. Just—just stop. I need you to be quiet.” Bobby says. He looks about two seconds away from putting his head between his knees and hyperventilating.

John thinks for a moment. “No.”

“ _No_?” Bobby’s voice goes up in a panicked crescendo.

“Kiss me.” John demands. _Through any means necessary_ should be a heavy weight to bear, but somehow John doesn't feel too bothered by the thought of following through. He doesn't want to think about why.

“ _What_ ? No!” Bobby’s never been this panicked before. John relates to the feeling, but his panic feels more like cotton filling his head, apprehension filling his chest, and thousands of tiny winged creatures fluttering around in his stomach. He refuses to say butterflies. He won't say it.

“You know, if this is all ‘my fault’ as somebody so eloquently put it, I should fucking fix it or something, right? So just kiss me, get it over with, and then when you hate it you don’t have to think you’re gay anymore.” John says, growing aware of the fact that his cheeks feel hot. He's never been a big blusher, so it's unlikely Bobby can see how uncomfortable he is, but John knows. It doesn't work to ease his discomfort any.

Bobby looks at him like that’s the stupidest thing he’s ever heard. It probably is. " _I_ don't think I'm gay, _you_ think I'm gay. There's a big difference there. I'm not doing it."

Ignoring the uncomfortably hot flash of panic he feels when he realizes Bobby’s about to really say no and refuse completely, John lets out a carefree scoff and levels Bobby with a stare.

“Look, it’s not like I’m gay, right? If you go kiss some random gay guy, he’ll probably be into it, and things will get weird. You know I’m not into it.” His chest hurts more the longer the conversation goes on. He's not sure what his end game is here, only that it's almost certain to do more damage than good.

Bobby closes his eyes and screws up his fists, sucking deep breaths in and out. He’s silent for almost a full thirty seconds, but right as he opens his eyes John suddenly knows he’s going to say yes. He just _knows_.

“Fine.”

And then he leans across the bed and kisses John.

It’s awkward, it’s not particularly _good_ , but it’s great.

Bobby has no skill but he makes up for that with eagerness. His hands tangle in John’s hair and his knee squeaks against the flashcard he’s kneeling on, but John doesn’t care. He’s shocked by how little he wants the kiss to end.

It only lasts a few seconds before Bobby jerks backwards panting, nearly toppling off the bed.

He stares at John with wide eyes. His jaw works silently for a half-second like he’s trying to say something before any words come out. “ _Fuck_.”

He’s still red in the face.

John feels a little proud to know he did that, a little panicked to know he did that, and a little like he wants to do it again. No, _a lot_ like he wants to do it again. _Fuck_ is right.

He’s already got a hand reaching for Bobby again when Bobby finally finds his words.

“Well I definitely know I’m not gay now,” Bobby says in a strangely strangled little voice. His wide eyes are fixed to John’s mouth with something that John would have to call horror if he were asked to identify it.

Something light in John's chest fizzles out before he even has a chance to wonder why it's there.

“Right.” John scoffs. His mouth burns cold where Bobby pulled away.

“I should—I should go. I—thanks for helping me study. I should go.” **B** obby scrambles off the bed like it’s just been set on fire, which John hasn’t written off doing just yet.

“Right.” He says again, the word sounding lame to his ears.

They don’t say another word to each other, and Bobby flees the room as soon as he gets his shoes on. He doesn’t come back at all that night, and John never asks where he slept.

 

* * *

 

They don’t talk about it.

Bobby sits next to him at lunch the next day, face forcefully cheerful as he jokes with Piotr and Kitty about one of their shared classes, and he doesn’t avoid looking at John, but he never quite seems to meet his eyes, either.

It’s simultaneously the best and worst way Bobby could have chosen to handle the situation.

There's a brief moment where John thinks things are looking up, when he hands Bobby a spoon and Bobby gives him a genuine smile that doesn't hold any hint of fear, but it's gone as quickly as it came.

Several minutes later, John’s forced to watch as the opposite happens, when Rogue slides her plate down next to them, and Bobby instantly lights up.

“Rogue! Weigh in here, is the Professor’s class harder, or is Jean’s class harder? Piotr and I are making a bet.” Bobby says, face determinedly sunny.

Rogue pokes at her food with a fork. “Uh, I don’t know. I haven't had a class with Doctor Grey yet. But Mr. Summers’ class is pretty hard, harder than the Professor’s, I think. Mostly because of how borin’ it is, but I think he should be in the runnin’.”

John waits for Bobby to jump to Summers’s defense the way he always does. He’s almost excited to see Rogue get chewed out by Summers’s personal attack dog.

But Bobby never says anything. He and Piotr nod thoughtfully, heads bent together as they consider the options.

John wants to punch something. He’s getting that feeling more and more around Rogue.

“Seriously? Nothing?” He says. Five heads turn to look at him in confusion.

“Seriously what?” Bobby asks.

John waves his fork at Rogue. “Seriously _that_ .” Rogue looks offended. John stabs his fork at Bobby. “Seriously _you_. Did you not just hear what she said about Summers? You’re not going to tell her off for it? She just insulted Mr. Most-Important-Member-of-the-X-Men and you’re just going to nod?”

Rogue’s eyes narrow, and she exchanges a glance with Bobby. Something gets communicated there that John doesn’t like. Maybe it’s just the fact that they have a short-hand now, a relationship where a single glance can express everything they’re thinking.

Bobby looks back at him, expression unreadable.

“What is your problem, John?” Theresa asks him cautiously. It’s the first time she’s spoken up the whole meal, and John wishes she’d decided to keep her mouth shut.

“Nothing. I don’t have a problem, because everything’s sunny and great and we’re all happy. I’m not hungry.” He declares, dropping his fork onto his plate with a clang.

Somewhere deep in his head he can hear Doctor Grey telling him to consider what affect his actions have on his friends, and why he's lashing out so harshly right now, but he squashes the voice. He's never cared much for therapy babble anyway.

He stands up and walks away from the table, plate clattering into the sink as he stalks through the kitchen. Behind him, his friends call his name, but he doesn’t listen.

The fire in his chest is throbbing, and he needs to go set something ablaze before he goes up in flames himself.

 

* * *

 

Their first mission comes without warning, in the middle of the night. John’s shaken awake by a metal arm and somebody yelling for Scott in the background. It takes him a minute to adjust to what’s going on—the lights are bright in the room and he can’t see Bobby anywhere—but Piotr’s grip on his shoulder is tight enough to reign his spiraling thoughts in.

“What—?” He says intelligently.

“There has been an incident in one of the outer boroughs of the city. A mutant child with powers like a bomb. We are supposed to go with the team and help them control the situation. Get up.” Piotr orders. He’s wearing his training suit, still a little tight across the chest because Storm never had official uniforms made for them.

The still-groggy part of John wants to argue that they can’t go on a mission with the X-Men without uniforms, but Piotr’s already leaving the room.

John has no choice but to follow.

 

* * *

 

John’s flight suit is tight through his arms, and he spends the entire plane ride to the city tugging at them, as if he’s going to be able to relax the leather through sheer force of will.

The real concern is that his range of motion will be restricted, but that’s something he won’t know until he uses his powers. He’s tempted to light something up right where he’s sitting to test it out, but he has a feeling the adults wouldn’t appreciate a ball of fire in an enclosed, airlocked vehicle.

Excitement and anxiety run high among the group, a clear separation from the subtle worry emanating from the adults sitting in the cockpit.

John wonders how long it will take them to get to that place, to start thinking of a mission as something to fear instead of something to look forward to.

The X-Men grow more and more restless the closer they get to the city, smoke rising around them in pillars of destruction. The plan begins to descend, and someone behind John gasps. Below them lies a city that resembles something from the Hunger Games movies. Everything is on fire, blazing brightly as buildings collapse and streets crack from the heat.

“We’re about to touch down,” Summers tells them. “You’re going to see things you’ve never seen before out there, and I want you all to be prepared for it. People are dead. More people will die. Make sure it isn’t you or your friends.” He straps his gloves on calmly--so calmly John thinks it has to be a facade. Nobody can _actually_ rush into battle headfirst without batting an eye. It’s not even possible.

Summers hands out earpieces, grimly calm expression still fixed in place. **“** I want all of you behind me until we exit the plane, and then I want Bobby on perimeter, icing down any flames that try to leave the area. Storm will be with you, but don’t rely on her too much. This is your chance to show us what you’ve been learning. John, I want you to take Rogue to the center and find the boy. Get rid of any flames that get in your way, but don’t waste time on that. Our primary concern is getting to the kid before he goes off again. Those two,” Summers points at Kitty and Piotr. “Will be evacuating civilians from the area with Wolverine and I.”

Summers snaps his visor on and motions them to the front of the plane. From her seat at the back Jubilee clears her throat.

“Uh, what about us, Cyclops? You didn’t give Theresa and I anything to do.” She says, waving a hand between Theresa and herself.

“You two will stay on the plane with Jean and tend to the wounded. Your powers aren’t ideal for this mission.” Summers says without looking over at them. John can pinpoint the exact moment Jubilee’s unsurety turns to anger, and it’s pretty much exactly when Summers benches her without meeting her eyes.

“Right.” She flops back down in her seat with a roll of her eyes, arms crossed sullenly over her chest.

Whatever. She lost out on one mission, there would be others. She had the easy job, hanging out in the plane and sticking Band-Aids on whiny kids.

Wolverine extends his claws with a metallic noise, his grin a little feral in the darkness. John’s slightly glad he’s not working with the sorry group saddled with him.

“Ready to rumble, X-Babies?” Wolverine says, light glinting off his claws as they step off the plane.

Kitty nudges him sharply with an elbow and smothers a laugh, but he refuses the acknowledge the shitty name they’d talked about using so many months ago.

The city around them is somehow in even worse shape than John had been able to tell from the plane. Everything is in ruins around them, flames flickering out of buildings and large chunks of concrete laying in the road. Somewhere far away the wail of a siren adds to the din of screaming and crying from the people around them.

Everything smells hot, the smoke in the air making it difficult to see anything around them. The damage seems to be worse the closer to downtown they get, and John tugs Rogue after him down a side-street. Ahead of them, a window shatters and flames pour out of the building.

There’s something almost impressive about it.

Rogue grabs his sleeve and tugs--hard. “John! John, there’s a woman over there.”

He follows her finger to an overturned car a ways down the street with a sinking feeling. She’s going to make him rescue the woman, isn’t she?

The woman is screaming something in a language John doesn’t recognize, her face half-burnt. She looks trapped in her vehicle.

“What am I supposed to do? I control fire, I can’t lift cars off of people.” He reminds Rogue. Behind him, the woman lets out a sob. Rogue stares at him, eyes begging him to give in. “Alright, fine. Fuck. Let’s take a look. Just a look.”

He stomps over to the car, foot skidding a little over a chunk of concrete. This whole street is a death-trap. They kneel down next to the woman, and Rogue asks her where she’s stuck. She says something John doesn’t understand.

With her face burned, her only distinguishing feature is the bright shirt she's wearing under her cardigan. John decides it's better than calling her the woman, and she becomes Purple Shirt.

“What did she say?” He asks Rogue, feeling the panic start to creep up in his throat.

Rogue shakes her head. “I think it’s her leg, maybe? I heard a word that sounded like leg.”

It’s an unhelpful assumption, but John can’t complain. He doesn't have anything better to offer.

“Alright, great. Lady--hey lady! Do you speak English?” John asks.

Purple Shirt starts to cry.

“John, don’t yell at her! She’s injured and she doesn’t understand us. Ma’am? I’m gonna try an’ move you, okay?” Rogue mimes pulling Purple Shirt towards them. She still seems unsure of what they're saying, but she nods through her tears.

“Great.” John says.

Rogue grabs Purple Shirt under her shoulders and pulls while John holds the car steady. It’s hard work--neither of them prepared to do quite this much heavy lifting--but eventually there’s a groaning sound and the car and woman separate, sending Rogue one way with Purple Shirt sprawled on top of her, and John the other direction with the burned shell of the car. He lands awkwardly on one of his hands, and he feels his wrist buckle underneath him. There’s a flash of pain, and then a feeling like white noise radiates up to his elbow, but he ignores it in favor of congratulating himself.

It feels like a victory, a real win, and John’s pretty sure this sets the tone for their whole career as X-Men. They’ve just saved somebody on their first try, and now they’re off to save another. Maybe this hero thing isn’t as bad as he’s been assuming.

“John,” Rogue calls from behind the car, her voice shaky. It’s the note of panic she’s trying to hide that has John standing up and kicking the car out of his way to get over to her. Rogue isn’t supposed to panic, she’s supposed to roll her eyes at the people who do.

“Shit, she’s bleedin’. Her leg’s bleedin’ bad. Do you have anythin’ on you? A t-shirt, a towel, _anythin’_?” It’s a lot of blood, enough to soak the left side of Rogue’s training suit. John fights the urge to gag.

“I--no.” He watches in horror as Rogue presses her hands frantically to Purple Shirt’s thigh, like she can physically stop the blood from pouring out if she just tries hard enough. Purple Shirt mutters something to herself that sounds like a prayer.

“John! Please, _do something_ .” Rogue begs. She pushes her wild hair out of her eyes with the back of her hand. When she turns to look at him there’s a bright red streak on her forehead. He tells himself it’s rust from moving the car. He knows it’s a lie. “ _John!_ ”

He snaps into action, kneeling in front of them and tearing Purple Shirt’s already shredded cardigan into pieces as best he can with his swollen wrist. “Hold her steady.” He orders, wrapping one of the makeshift bandages tightly around the woman’s upper leg like a tourniquet. Blood soaks into the knees of his uniform but he ignores it.

Purple Shirt screams when he touches her, but Rogue holds her tightly. It’s shoddy workmanship, the sweater probably the worst thing he could be using, but he doesn’t have any other options. It’s this or she dies. It’s this and she probably still dies anyway.

“That’s all I can do.” He says to Rogue. His voice sounds hollow and far away. He's never seen this much blood before, or been surrounded by so much death.

“No, there’s more--we can--this _can’t_ be it! We have to do more!” Tears roll down her grimy cheeks. He shakes his head. There’s nothing else he can do. They have to leave, they have to find the kid, or they’ll die. He tells her as much.

“I don’t want to leave her,” Rogue says. She’s still hugging tightly to Purple Shirt. John touches her shoulder gently and shakes his head out of sight of the old woman. The blood staining Rogue’s uniform is dark, and if John remembers anything from Doctor Grey’s anatomy class, it’s that dark blood means a deep wound. Arteries or some shit.

“She’s a goner. _And we will be too_ if we don’t go find this kid before he blows, okay?” John says, compelling her to listen with every word he speaks.

She doesn't get it, because she's a hero the way Bobby is a hero, because she can't fathom the idea of leaving someone behind. John had always felt like he’d never be the kind of guy to risk his own life to save someone else's, and here he was, proving himself right.

He's just surprised to find that she doesn't feel the same way.

“Rogue, this is about the hundreds of other people out there in this city who will die if you don't get it together and save them. One life for however fucking many people live here, got that?” John tells her furiously, digging deep to find the most compelling words he can to motivate her. Given the person she's turning out to be, it makes sense that the words he finds are the same ones he would have used on Bobby. He offers her a hand.

She resists his help up, gloveless hands stained bright, and he’s not sure when she took them off, but they’re lost somewhere and he doesn’t have time to look for them. She just better not accidentally drain him or he’ll haunt her till the day she dies.

“Okay, okay. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Rogue says. Behind them the woman screams, her panic growing louder with every step away they take. It’s horrifying to walk away like this, but John doesn’t have a choice. There’s nothing they can do.

Rogue cries silently as they scramble towards the center, looking a bit like a zombie merely going through the motions of walking. John’s pretty sure he doesn’t look much better. His arm aches now, sharp and insistent, and his head feels like it’s filled with cotton.

He can’t wait until this night is over.

Somehow, the city is in worse shape the deeper they go. There’s blood everywhere now, and John see’s what he thinks is part of a leg laying in the middle of the road. The urge to gag is back. Fire blazes around them, crackling so noisily it almost drowns out the siren wails.

“ _I don’t think we’re gonna make it_ ,” Rogue yells at him over the noise. He shoots her a glare. They aren’t failing their first mission ever because she can’t handle the heat. Pun intended. If he’s not giving up, she’s not giving up.

A sparking street lamp falls over and sends what sounds like several thousand volts of electricity into a nearby car.

John flinches.

“Calm down, Princess, we’re almost there.” His false bravado disguises how fucking terrified he is. His hands are shaking--not that it matters, because he hasn’t gotten a chance to _do_ anything with them yet—so he shoves the uninjured one into the empty pocket of his flight suit to hide the tremors. Instead of hitting the familiar cool of metal, his fingers scrape the lining of the pocket.

Shit.

_Oh no, no no no_. This wasn’t happening, this wasn’t.

He turns around frantically, half-hoping he’ll see a glint of the lighter in the rubble there, but there’s nothing.

He must have forgotten to bring it with him.

“What are you doin’?” Rogue cries, staring at him with concern. She looks half mad with grief and worry.

There’s enough fire around that he doesn’t need a source, there’s more than even he could control surrounding them already, but the lighter offered a comfort, a sense of security he hadn’t realized he needed until it was gone.

“ _Shit_. It’s gone.” He tells her, watching as understanding hits.

“You don’t need it, John, we’re fine. There’s fire all over the place, use that if you need it. But we’ve gotta find this kid, you know we do.” Her voice is hoarse from the smoke, and she’s practically begging him to move, but he feels stuck in place.

“I can’t,” He says. “I need it.”

It's crazy that this is what's rendering him immovable, but everything suddenly feels insurmountable, awful events falling like dominos one after the other and stacking up to be too much to handle.

Rogue’s hair spirals around her in a frizzy halo, the heat turning her cheeks the color of the blood on her forehead. “Well we don’t have it, so what do you want me to do? You either come with me and save this kid, or I leave you here and we all probably die. Do you want to die?”

He doesn’t, and as much as he dislikes her, he doesn’t want her to die either.

“Okay. Okay okay, let’s go.” It still feels like he’s missing a limb, but he puts his gloved hand in hers and lets her drag him toward the source of the explosion.

Summers had been right in thinking that the kid might blow again. By the time Rogue and John get to him, he’s curled in on himself, sobbing, already sending bolts of bright energy off into the air around him. One of the bolts hits an abandoned movie theater and knocks the neon sign down into the street.

Beside him, Rogue winces at the noise, but stands her ground.

“ _We’re here to save you_!” She tells the boy. He just cries harder. With every shuddering breath he takes, the bolts of energy grow.

There's no getting through to him, not now while he's panicked and high off of adrenaline. They have to knock him out asap.

John grabs Rogue by the arm and shakes it. “You’ve got to touch him.”

“What!? No! I don’t want that inside of me!” She points at the kid. It does sound crazy, but the more he thinks about it, the more sense it makes.

Why else would Summers have sent the two of them out to save the kid, when Doctor Grey would have been much more prepared to shut his powers down, and both Wolverine and Storm would have better equipped to shut _him_ down.

If they had gotten to him and taken him back to the plane in time, none of this would be necessary, but they’d wasted all that time with the woman and her car, and now they had one chance to stop him from going off again. Summers had to have been planning for this, sending them in case things went badly and somebody had to control the kid’s powers for him.

This had been the plan all along.

“This sounds crazy, but you have to trust me!” John says. It’s clear that she doesn’t.

“I just—I don’t know. I can’t do it, I can’t control—We’ll find another way!” She insists, yanking her arm out of his grasp and staring at him with wild eyes.

John wants to tell her she’s being selfish and stupid, he wants to scoff and throw up his hands in frustration, but she’d helped him when he needed it, so the least he can do is return the favor. That way maybe they’ll be even.

“Rogue—fuckin’—Rogue! Look at me, jeez. You’ve gotta take his powers, okay? He can't handle all of it right now, but maybe he can handle some of it if you take the rest. You've gotta be like…..a fucking crutch for him or something, okay?” Their eyes meet, and he sees the understanding there. _Finally_.

She bites her lip and nods quickly.

“I’ll try and stop the flames from getting in your way, but you have to get there fast.” John says, ready to finally see if his too-tight suit restricts his motion much. He’ll be sure to leave Storm a comment card if it does.

But he doesn’t get a chance to try his powers out. The moment he rotates his wrist even the slightest bit the ache turns into shooting pain so sharp it brings him to his knees. He lets out a startled cry as he goes down.

“John!” Rogue yells, reaching for him, but she’s not strong enough to catch him. “Shit, that looks bad. I don’t think….” She takes a breath. “I don’t think you’re going to be able to help.” Her voice sounds strange, and it takes him a moment to zero in on why.

She has to take his powers too, if he can’t use them. _Shit_. Her bloodied hand hovers near his face, like she’s trying to talk herself into doing it. He doesn’t want her in his head, he doesn’t want every thought he’s ever had running around in there, but that won’t matter much if they’re both dead.

“Okay.” He says. His tongue feels heavy in his mouth. She stares at him, waiting, desperation written all over her face. He realizes she’s waiting for him to give her permission. A foggy thought creeps in that she’s probably remembering what people said about her when she took Logan’s powers to save herself so many months ago. He nods.

“D-do it.”

She nods back, mouth set in a grim line, and presses her hand to his cheek. It’s an oddly intimate gesture, and it makes his stomach turn. He’s not used to this level of closeness from anyone but Bobby.

Everything goes wobbly for about ten seconds, a feeling like something being drawn out of him stinging deep in his chest, and then the world lurches back to normal. He watches through foggy vision as Rogue approaches the boy slowly, surely, picking her way over destroyed cement and fallen chunks of building.

She hesitates in front of the kid, takes a deep breath, and a moment later the boy is collapsing to the ground.

 

* * *

 

They regroup by the plane, John carrying the kid as carefully as he can with his injured hand, Rogue beside him sparking occasionally. It’s disconcerting, but the sparks are small bolts, not the concerning blasts they’d been when the kid was in control.

John’s surprised to find he trusts Rogue to control it completely.

Doctor Grey clips an inhibitor collar into the boy—which sends John’s paranoia into full-blown panic mode because he hadn’t even known they could _make_ those—and sets him down on one of the seats. The battle is over, and they need to get as far from the scene as they can before they become criminals too.

Their wounds are tended to quickly, their injuries bandaged to keep them conscious and nothing more, and Doctor Grey offers Rogue a pair of latex doctor gloves to cover up with. John’s not sure how badly Rogue is injured, but the three personalities she has running around in her head seem to be her greatest concern.

She sits across from him, shooting him furtive glances every once in a while. It’s disconcerting, but most things with her are. Whether or not he wanted a fight, he’s too tired to ask her what she wants, even half-heartedly. The fact that they could have died is starting to sink in, and he needs the quiet to process.

Bobby has a rather nasty gash running down his leg when he comes back, leaning heavily on Storm for support. He looks like he wants to hobble over and start asking questions when he sees John’s splinted wrist and Rogue’s bloody uniform, but Doctor Grey intercepts him before he can.

John’s almost grateful. He’s pretty sure he couldn’t handle seeing Bobby and Rogue tearfully question each other about the mission right now.

The others appear unhurt as they file in, Piotr and Kitty grinning at each other in elation and high-fiving Bobby as they pass by him. Lucky bastards, with their convenient powers and impenetrable skin. They were definitely making the main X-team now.

“Where did Jubilation and Theresa go?” Piotr asks him when they’re cleared to sit down, but John doesn’t know the answer. Scott hasn’t returned yet either, so it’s likely they’re with him.

Bobby finally makes his way over and sits down next to John, cool fingers prodding his wrist just enough to hurt before Doctor Grey orders him to leave John alone. John wants to say he doesn’t mind, but he kind of enjoys the bright blue worry in Bobby’s eyes. It makes his chest burn in that pleasure-pain flash he’s starting to get nearly every time Bobby’s around.

“I totally saved more people than you did,” John whispers quietly, conscious of how insensitive that would sound to anyone else listening. It’s not true, per say, but it helps his carefree facade.. “Told you I would.”

Bobby flips him off.

“What, like you can claim better than helping shut down the immediate threat to the area?” John says with a laugh. It’s an inappropriate conversation to be having, one he’s certain he’ll regret when his shock wears off, but right now it feels hilarious.

“Uh, yeah, I think I can.” Bobby points at the now-bandaged gash on his leg. “I got that from pulling a kid out of a building that was collapsing. It was…” He looks like he wants to say something braggy, something to play into their little game, but he just stops talking.

When John looks over at him he has tears in his eyes and he’s swallowing hard. Okay. _Okay_. Dropping that topic. He gives Bobby’s hand a squeeze and doesn’t push him to say anything more. His friend will recover when he stops focusing on the losses and starts focusing on how it felt to rescue people.

John waits for some comment about how _they’re heroes now_ , about how cool it was to save people and be X-Men, and how he can’t wait to do it again, but nothing comes. Bobby just rests his head against the headrest of his seat and takes shallow breaths.

Not for the first time John wonders if Bobby’s finally realized how naive it is to dream of being a hero like the ones that exist in comic books. Good. Better he learn now that it’s a stupid fucking idea. It’ll hurt less later, anyway.

Looking at his injured friend, John suddenly wants nothing more than to grab him and kiss him. But a fight isn’t what either of them need, so he keeps his hands to himself.

Doctor Grey closes up her medical kit and orders them all to get some rest while they wait for Summers to get back. She looks worried for reasons John can’t identify, and he wonders if Summers took Jubilee and Theresa somewhere because one of them got hurt.

It’s pointless to wonder about, though, and John’s just started to drift off into an uneasy sleep when he hears an argument coming from outside the plane.

“— _Running off like that_ ! You could have died, you could have gotten people killed! When I give you orders, you _listen_.” It’s Summers, and he’s obviously pissed. Yay.

Summers pushes Jubilee and Theresa into the plane with frustrated noise, ignoring all of their attempts to explain themselves. John stares at them hard, trying to figure out what they’d been up to. He gets no answers from their sullen expressions.

“I knew this was a mistake, didn’t I tell you this was a mistake?” Summers says to Doctor Grey. It’s supposed to be under his breath, but he’s seething too hard to be quiet. “We shouldn’t have brought them. They weren’t ready.”

Jubilee kicks the seat in front of her ferociously. “It’s not like we didn’t help. You couldn’t have done it without us.”

“You can into the line of fire without a plan! Bobby nearly had a building collapse on him because he couldn’t leave the evacuation to the people assigned evacuation, and John and Rogue nearly got all of us blown up over one woman. That’s right, Jean told me everything.” Summers says, his voice still disapproving and deep the way it is when he’s Cyclops. For the first time ever, John starts thinking of them as the same person.

“If I hadn’t gone in, six people would have died!” Bobby argues, shrugging hard. “What was I supposed to do? Leave them to die?”

“Yeah, and Theresa and I were just helping. We aren’t useless, and we proved that.” Jubilee chimes in. It’s a fucking mess, and John just wants to be left out of it, but the yelling is preventing him from going to sleep.

Summers makes an aborted movement towards Jubilee before Doctor Grey touches his arm. The tension now is worse than it had been on the ride over.

 

**GASOLINE ON THE FLAMES  
**

They get put on probation, because he never could catch a break even when he was helping to save someone’s fucking life. Their suits go on lockdown and they’re told to stay out of the danger room, which sets John on edge. He hadn’t been planning on trying any training exercises with his injured wrist, but being told he’s not allowed to makes him want to more than ever.

Rogue clearly agrees, her fingers constantly tapping an impatient beat against a leg or the arm of a chair. It takes him a while to realize that her impatience is actually _his_ impatience that she’s borrowing. It’s a bit disconcerting to see all of his worst qualities amplified in a girl he’s starting to grow surprisingly fond of. He finds himself making a note to thank his friends for putting up with him over the past few years.

And if he also slips Rogue his spare lighter one night at dinner to just give her something to do with her pent-up energy, nobody has to know. It’s not like they’re friends.

Except they kind of are.

She saves him a seat at meals, and he walks her to classes. Since he’s technically unable to take notes or copy anything down with his hand in a cast, she lets him look over all her notes before Bobby makes them get started on homework.

It’s a strange kind of peace they’ve found between the two of them, but John finds he doesn’t hate it so much when he’s not busy hating her. Maybe he was unfair to her in the beginning.

It bothers Bobby, though. John catches him watching them with a small frown more than once, but he never does more than shake his head when John asks him about it. The sappy fucker is probably just jealous that Rogue’s attention isn’t on him anymore. Asshole.

“It’s just one of those things,” John says a couple of days after the mission. They’re all sitting on the floor of Rogue’s bedroom (she’s got the biggest room, and therefore the best for hanging out in a group), a stack of playing cards discarded in front of them, Kitty and Piotr are looking at something on Kitty’s laptop, ignoring everything around them.

“One of what things?” Bobby asks, eyes flicking jealousy to where Rogue has her gloved hand clamped around John’s so he can’t steal any more of her popcorn.

“You know, a mountain troll thing.” John says, and Kitty cracks up from across the room.

“You are _not_ Hermione Granger!” She says. “If anything, you’re Draco Malfoy and _Rogue_ is Hermione.”

“That doesn’t even fit with the metaphor I was using.” John says, rolling his eyes. Rogue points an accusing finger at him.

“She’s not wrong, though. You kinda are Draco.” She says. John flips her off.

“I don’t understand, why are you guys talking about Harry Potter characters?” Bobby says, brow furrowed.

“Because, _Bobby-boy_ , Rogue and I fought a mountain troll together, and now we can’t help being friends.” John explains.

Bobby still looks unconvinced.

“You should have started Harry Potter last week when I told you to,” Kitty says, clucking her tongue in disappointment. “Then you’d know what we were talking about. You’ve had enough time to do it.” She waves a hand at Bobby’s injured leg, stretched out in front of him.

“One of us actually has to collect the homework, though, and that’s been me. In case you haven’t noticed. I’m not sure why you can’t do it, since you’re completely uninjured and everything.” Bobby says. His frown has begun to relax, and John feels less on edge already. When Bobby gets keyed up he gets keyed up.

“I'm recovering from my emotional injuries.” Kitty says with a dramatic hand pressed to her chest.

“Like I said, completely uninjured.” Bobby repeats.

John and Rogue lock eyes briefly. “ _Neville_.” They say at the same time. The room erupts into giggles at Bobby’s expense.

 

* * *

 

The peace is too good to last.

They make it six days before the fighting starts, made worse by the fact that it’s John against John, and _really_ he should be out of her head by now, but he can see himself in every smirk she flashes and every middle finger she flips.

He’s never hated himself quite so much, and he hates himself a lot on a regular basis.

He’s been on edge all week, because you just can’t sit around with no way to blow off steam for a week without starting to feel antsy, but Rogue was the one person he felt okay around. The one person he felt like maybe understood how awful it was to have the itch locked away, to have the fire begging to be controlled.

It all comes to a head because of some stupid comment about some stupid actor in some stupid movie.

“I don’t know, I think he looks a bit like Wolverine, you know?” Kitty says, tilting her head from side to side to better inspect the paused TV screen.

“I really don’t see it.” Bobby says, face screwed up doubtfully. “Wolverine’s a lot more... _bulky_ than this guy.”

Kitty snorts. “Well of course he is. Wolverine beats people up for a living. This guy sings showtunes. But they’ve got the same eyes, and I feel like their shoulders are kind of the same, too.”

John’s got his nose buried in a book--Kitty’d insisted that he read the second Harry Potter book, so he was doing his best to comply--but he privately agrees with Bobby that whatever similarities exist are minimal. Wolverine was way better looking, anyway.

From the couch, Rogue grins. “I don’t know, I don’t think this guy has anythin’ on Logan. Logan’s _built_. He’s way better lookin’.”

It was like she lived in his brain. Her unchanging expression made it impossible to tell if the comment came from her or from him, because he knew she spent a lot of time with Logan, and it couldn’t all be innocent training, but John wants to yell at her to get out of his head anyway.

Bobby stares at her, face disappointed, and it’s just too much.

“You’d know, wouldn’t you?” John says with a scoff. Rogue looks over at him, eyebrow raised. She’s still got a small smile on her face, like she’s waiting for him to toss a teasing barb at her so she can toss one back. He hates that they’ve fallen into that predictable pattern.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” She says lightly “I’m hardly the expert on attraction.”

She stares at him expectantly, and the petty, broken part of him _screams_ at him to flush every teeny bit of progress they’ve made down the drain. He’s always been good at self-sabotaging, if nothing else.

“Oh, right. I forgot. The not-touching thing has to make it pretty hard to get close to anyone.” John says, gaze coolly focused on the couch. Rogue’s smile wavers, and she stares at him with something akin to confusion. She looks like she’s trying to figure out what he’s playing at, and he just wants to yell _game over_.

“Dude, uncalled for. It’s not her fault her power sucks.” Bobby says. He shoots John a look. It’s hard to decipher. But John doesn’t care to try. He’s too busy looking at Bobby squeezing Rogue’s hand. Okay then.

“Whatever.” John rolls his eyes and returns to his book, willing his body to look like he’s not paying attention to them at all.

“ _Anyway_.” Kitty says. “Let’s talk more about this thing you have for Logan. Are you into bad boys?”

Rogue laughs. “God no. But I can look, can’t I? I'm untouchable, not blind. I mean, even Bobby thinks Logan’s hot, don’t you Bobby?”

Bobby splutters. “No, I don’t! I don’t think Logan’s hot at all. He's not my type either.”

“Well, who then? Scott? He’s got more of that boy scout leader kind of appeal, very morally upright.” Kitty says. She’s taps a finger against her chin in thought.

John sits very still. He’s almost afraid that any movement will stop Bobby from answering. Finally he’s about to know the truth.

“I don’t think Scott’s hot either! Why are you asking me this? I don’t think any guys are hot.” Bobby looks like he wants the floor to swallow him up. It’s almost funny how red his face burns.

Rogue shoots John a funny look, and he desperately looks anywhere but directly at them. _She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know, she doesn’t know_.

“What about you, John? Which of the teachers do you think is hottest? I’ll bet you’re into blonde’s, right? What about Scott’s brother? He’s got that bad boy swagger you want so badly to have.” Rogue says. This is her revenge for his earlier comment, and he doesn’t appreciate it.

“Very funny.” He says, eyes never leaving his book. He can still see her from the corner of his eye, but this way it doesn’t look like he’s watching her.

Her smile only grows. “Okay then. Bobby. Marry, fuck, kill….Scott, Professor X, and The Beast.”

it sounds exactly like a question John himself would have asked Bobby, and that makes him seeth. She wears him better than he does.

“Oh god, um, I don’t know--I don’t, can I just do nothing with any of them?” Bobby asks. John’s tempted to rescue him, but not at his own expense.

“Dude, it’s okay, it’s not a serious thing. Rogue’s just joking, _aren’t you Rogue_?” Kitty says, nudging her friend sharply in the side. “Don’t take her so seriously. Bobby’s kind of inexperienced, he doesn’t usually like to play those kinds of games.” She tells Rogue.

Something like realization dawns on Rogue’s face as Bobby groans and complains about Kitty undermining his street cred by saying things like that. Whatever Rogue is up to, John doesn’t like it.

He clears his throat. “Hey, uh, maybe we should get some lunch or something, it’s been kind of a--”

Rogue looks John dead in the eyes and says, “You’ve never kissed a girl, have you, Bobby?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, Bobby’s bright red cheeks saying everything they need to know. “How do you know you like girls if you’ve never kissed one?”

The recycling of John’s own words is clearly designed to do maximum damage to him--and it works. He clenches his fists, ignoring the pain that shoots up his injured hand, and glares at her. Across the room, Bobby’s eyes have gone wide and he’s blushing fiercely.

“I, um--I don’t know? But I like girls, I definitely like girls!” Bobby protests, looking every bit as uncomfortable as John feels.

Rogue smirks. “Kiss me.”

John grits his teeth and focuses hard at the page in front of him. The words seem to swim around the page, but he has to look somewhere other than Rogue and Bobby.

A small part of him knows that she’s being this petty and mean because she has him inside of her head, but that part is easily outweighed by the vengeful, possessive parts of him that want to set Rogue on fire. Whatever the reason, she’s doing this on purpose, to show him she knows, and she doesn’t care, and now she’s going to take something that never even really belonged to him but hurts like a bitch to lose anyway.

Bobby complies eagerly, hands finding Rogue’s shoulders with his eyes closed. He looks happier than John wants him to be, more serene with his eyes closed. John hates every second of it. Next to them on the couch, Kitty makes an excited squealing noise that’s almost too sharp for John’s ears to tolerate.

Rogue jerks back, ice on her breath, and flashes a grin at Bobby. But John knows it’s really meant for him. “Wow.” She says, exhaling a cloud of white. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to take anythin’ from you.”

Bobby looks breathless and confused. John remembers feeling the same way after she took his powers.

“It’s okay, I don’t mind. I mean, I liked it. The kiss, not the power stealing.” Bobby says.

John slams his book shut and grits his teeth. “Don’t look so happy, Bobby. She wouldn’t be doing this if she didn’t have so many people inside of her head, making her all confused.”

Rogue gives him an unimpressed look. “Well, the only people in my head currently are me, a ten year old kid, and you, so are you saying _you’re_ the one who wants to kiss Bobby and that’s just getting me confused?”

“God--what? No, shit. Who even cares? Go ahead and pretend you two can be happy when you can’t ever do more than what you just did. I’m going to go live in a world where people accept facts.” He stomps out of the room, book left forgotten on the rec room table.

Any good will he’d felt towards her after their victory together was all dried up.

 

* * *

 

It’s late when he talks to Rogue next, the harsh fluorescent lights of the kitchen making her skin look paper thin and pale against her blue nightgown. He rarely sees her like that, without her gloves or long sleeves, and he’s tempted to leave before he has to look at her any longer. This is a Rogue left unguarded by sleep, a Rogue he’s not supposed to see.

She calls out to him before he can make it past the door frame.

“John,” She says his name softly, like she thinks she’s going to scare him away. It’s a kind of softness he doesn’t have in him, and he wonders if she’s finally gotten him out of her head.

He wishes he could get away with fleeing the room.

“I just want something to eat.” He says instead of greeting her. He doesn’t want to talk.

He gets as far as pulling peanut butter out of the cabinet for a sandwich before she speaks up again. It was too much to hope that she’d let him go without another word.

“He asked me to go into town with him again. Bobby, I mean. It was awkward. Why does he keep doin’ that? I told him he was in no shape to be goin’ anywhere, but he’s determined as hell when he wants to be.” Rogue’s voice is carefully neutral, and he doesn’t know what he’s supposed to make of her dangerous topic choice. She seems to think he’s in the mood to delve into the finer points of reasoning for Bobby’s actions.

The memory of cold lips against his flits into his mind unwelcomed, and he has to force himself to brush away the thought. Bobby’s kissing girls, and asking them out, so he’s clearly not gay. Obviously. John had known that all along.

He doesn’t answer her.

“I know I kissed him, and it’s kind of unfair to be surprised when he makes somethin’ more out of it than it was meant to be, but I don’t think I can date him. He’s a nice guy, and I could use someone bein’ there for me if I’m gonna be here a while. But I can’t be what he needs me to be, and it wouldn’t be fair to try. He wants somebody who can be his girlfriend, who can hold his hand and go home to visit his parents. I can’t do that.” Rogue’s spoon clanks quietly against the edge of her cereal bowl, the only noise filling the kitchen without her words. She’s still watching him with that blank expression, and he feels like she’s waiting for some kind of reaction or tell.

He’s not sure if she’s baiting him, or if she’s just dumb enough to think he wants to hear her lament about why she can’t date Bobby.

If she wanted to, and Bobby wanted her to, she might as well just fucking do it. Everybody knew it would happen one way or another. Bobby was persistent when he wanted to be. She might say she hated it now, but eventually she would give in and accept how much easier it was to let Bobby love her than it was to fight it. Everybody gave in eventually.

He still doesn’t say anything.

“You don’t like me, do you?” She asks, mouth turned down in a frown. “Don’t deny it. I thought things were gettin’ better between the two of us for a while there, but now you’re actin’ like you wanna hit me again. I’ve been around enough to know how to tell when people don’t want me somewhere.”

“I don’t hate you.” He answers honestly. It’s more a skin-deep discomfort when she’s around. It’s the feeling that he has to keep one eye on the clock for the moment she and Bobby ride off into the sunset.

Rogue gives him a sharp look. “I didn’ ask if you hated me.” She looks down, fingers twisted in the hem of her nightgown. “I make you uncomfortable, don’t I? Because I kissed Bobby.”

And she’s kind of hit the nail so on the head that John wants to stick a crystal ball in front of her and call her a fortune teller. He could charge ten bucks a pop for that kind of accuracy.  

“Well, you don’t make me comfortable.” He says, avoiding her gaze.

“I don’t know what to do about that. I could apologize for things gettin’ so crazy, but I get the feelin’ you wouldn’t accept it if I did. I could promise never to talk to Bobby again, but that would only make all of us miserable.” Rogue says it like she thinks she’s being reasonable. John hates that she is. Bobby being miserable over Rogue avoiding him would only make John miserable, too.

“Don’t apologize.” He tells her. He wouldn’t believe her if she did, anyway.

“So what? You just hate me forever then? Cause I said a couple of dumb things and kissed the boy you like when I was high on teenage guy brain? Do you think that’s going to work?” She says it like it’s an actual question, like there’s another option. Like he actually _likes_ Bobby and that’s why he cares so much. He just maybe doesn’t hate kissing the guy, and doesn’t like seeing him get jerked around. That’s different.

John quickly decides he’s done making concessions for her. She’s a big girl. She can handle whatever he has to say. “I don’t know.” He says shortly. “What I do know is that you string Bobby along, and I don’t like it. I know things have changed since you got here, and you might not realize it and he might not realize it, but it’s not for the better. I know Bobby’s going to run himself into the ground trying to figure out how to fix you so you’ll want to be with him, when you should just be honest and tell him you’re too broken for that to work.”

Her expression hardens.

“You don’t know me, John Allerdyce. You don’t know my life or how I feel, so stop actin’ like you have any idea what’s going on in my head. Stop actin’ like you know what’s going on inside my goddamn head. You aren’t in there anymore.” She drops the spoon into her cereal and stands up. “If I was gonna date Bobby—and that would _my_ choice, it wouldn’t have anythin’ to do with him wearin’ me down or whatever bullshit you just said—you would not be welcome to weigh in. You know why? Cause I don’t need to hear jack-shit from you about what you think of my life.”

She doesn’t look at him directly as she puts her bowl in the sink and walks out of the kitchen, but her chin is held high and her eyes are fierce, so he can tell it’s from pride and not fear. Something about that rankles him.

She pauses in the doorway. “Bobby’s a nice guy. He deserves to know what you want from him. You should just tell him the truth. I told him the truth about what I wanted and he’s fine with it. He won’t hate you for it or anythin’.”

She’s gone before she can see him flip her off. She’s so full of shit, telling him to stop pretending to know what’s in her head when she’s trying to psycho-babble the hell out of him.

John ignores the way his chest burns. He’s getting used to having the fire in there.

 

* * *

 

There’s an awkward shuffle before class starts in the morning when Rogue and John run into each other, eyes carefully averted and jaws squared. Neither willing to give an inch. John isn’t about to bring up the conversation from the night before, and Rogue has enough sense not to mention it to him around so many people. Without the benefit of training exercises to let him blow off steam, he’s beginning to feel like a volcano ready to burst.

He promises himself that he won’t move, no matter how long it takes for her to get tired of standing in front of him. He’s never been the first to back down and he won’t let this be the first time.

Rogue is the first to break, heading to sit with Kitty after only a moment or two of awkward proximity, and John is left standing in the middle of the room feeling like an asshole.

Which isn’t a new feeling, but he’s usually happier about it.

Bobby waves him over from the table he’s sharing with Jubilee, his smile still artificially bright. John doesn't know if it's because of their fight or because of Jubilee’s presence at their table. John finds himself walking over, stormy expression still fixed on his face.

“Hey, I wasn’t sure you were coming, you were still in bed when I left this morning.” Bobby says. His injured leg has been propped on a pillow on the chair next to him, and he shouldn’t look like he’s trying so hard to be happy when his leg should be killing him, and Jubilee shouldn’t be sitting there pretending she’s his friend when she’s the one who got them all benched, and none of them should care about fucking Rogue, but it is what it is, and John hates it.

He’s getting used to hating everything.

“What, Rogue tell you to piss off, so you started caring about where I was again?” The words are cruel, and he can’t decide if he means them or not.

Bobby’s face falls. “What’s that supposed to mean?” He cuts a glance towards Rogue, perhaps looking for some explanation in her face, but there’s nothing to be found there. The burning in John’s chest flares up the moment Bobby’s eyes leave his, and—oh shit. He can finally identify what the feeling is.

It’s something he’s used to getting only when he sees happy families in the street, parents giving their kids allowance, children throwing tantrums in corner stores without fear that a single wrong word will be the one that leaves them out in the cold with nowhere to sleep at night. It’s a feeling he associates with places, and homes, and parents—never with Bobby.

He’s…. _jealous_.

“You know what? Nothing. It means nothing.” He says, jumping to defense as quickly as possible. He's too shaken by his realization to have this conversation with Bobby. He's too off his game not to say something he'll regret later.

“So you’re still mad at me, then. Why is that again? Because I didn’t really understand in the first place.” But the way Bobby says it sounds less like a question and more like the beginning of a fight. John’s not sure he can handle holding himself back with so many people watching.

For possible the first time in his life, John choses the smart option.

“Fuck off, Robert.” He spits, and storms out front of the classroom past Doctor Grey’s questioning stare, yelling something at her about his hand hurting too much to go to class today. He's starting to think the rest of his school career will be spent storming out of rooms away from his friends.

 

* * *

 

Bobby corners him in their room when lessons are over, hovering over the desk chair John’s lounging in, eyes filled with anger that John’s never seen directed at him before.

“What did you say to her?” Bobby sounds pissed off, and after the effort it took to hold himself back earlier, John almost welcomes a fight. It’s been a while since he’s made someone bleed.

It’s been a while since he bled.

Even with his hand in a cast, he’s pretty sure he could knock the shit out of Bobby. They’re pretty evenly matched with Bobby’s stitched up leg anyway. He might just come out of this on top.

“What did I say to _who_ , Bobby-boy? I talk to a lot of girls, you’re gonna have to be more specific.” He knows how his grin looks, a little feral, all fire. The jaunty angle he has to look up at Bobby from makes the expression much better. If Bobby were anyone else, he might truly believe John didn’t care what he was talking about.

“To Rogue! She’s barely talking to me, and she said you guys had a fight last night. Is that why you were so weird this morning? What did you say to her?” Despite his anger, Bobby still looks desperate to hear that he’s wrong. He always wants to believe the best in John, no matter what. It’s suffocating.

“The truth.” John says with a shrug. “She asked me what I thought of her, I told her.”

“You—Why would you do that? Are you trying to scare her away? She’s already run once because she thought we were mad at her. She has to know we want her here.” Bobby says. John doesn’t know how he’s missed the memo that maybe they _don’t_ all want her there.

“I hate to break it to you, but if one person’s shitty opinion of her is enough to scare her away, she wasn’t really going to stay in the first place.” John says with an exaggerated frown.

Bobby huffs. “I just don’t understand _why_ you don’t like her, why you’ve never liked her. She’s great once you get to know her, you just have to trust me.”

“Really. You don’t know why I don’t like her. You don’t have any idea.” John catches his gaze and doesn’t break eye contact.

He's putting as much intense meaning into the expression as he can, because while his deadpan tone might indicate that he doesn't care, his heart beating jackrabbit fast says otherwise.

Bobby blushes.

“No, I don’t. So why don’t you just _say_ it, why don’t you just tell me what’s wrong, because I want to hear it from—”

John’s blood runs cold. “What.” His voice sounds dangerous, even to his own ears. “What did she say to you?” He’s surprised Bobby manages to respond without looking scared.

“She didn’t say anything, not really, I just thought I’d talk to you. Isn’t that what you want, for me to hear your side of the story without jumping to conclusions about things? Just talk to me.” Bobby says defensively, so defensively that John knows Rogue told him about whatever she thought she knew.

Fuck her. John wasn’t saying anything.

He tells Bobby as much.

“Why are you being such an asshole?” Bobby asks, like he’s really never realized how much of a dick John can be.

John shrugs. “Cause I can be.”

Fuck Rogue for telling people about his private shit that she's only learned by stealing his memories. Fuck Bobby for playing dumb about it now as part of his innocent straight guy act. And fuck himself for ever ending up in a position where people knew things about him.

“You know, sometimes I really don’t get you, _fuck_.” Bobby spits.

John grabs the back of his neck hard enough to bruise and kisses him.

It’s nothing like their first kiss, which sounds cliché and John hates it, because kissing Bobby has apparently turned his internal monologue into a sappy Nicholas Sparks novel.

It’s not better in any way except the fact that they’re both kissing like they want to hurt and to be hurt, which is just the way John likes it when he’s angry.

He chuckles hotly against Bobby’s mouth, good hand working it’s way up under the back of his shirt to grab at his shoulder. God, Bobby has toned shoulders. He must have been doing work on his arms when John wasn’t paying attention.

“The fuck. Is so funny.” Bobby demands, turning his head to get a better angle on the kiss. It’s only then that John notices the truly awkward angle he’s got Bobby at, neck craned from leaning over him, weight balanced on his good leg, and he does some pretty impressive disarming work that lands Bobby right in his lap. He thinks whoever saw him use the move in a sparring session would have been pretty proud.

It goes downhill from there—although depending on the definition of downhill, it doesn’t go that way at all.

Bobby’s hands are tangled in John’s hair again, and John may have only kissed him twice, but he’s starting to realize that Bobby has a thing for hair pulling. Interesting.

“ _You are_.” John bites into his mouth, good hand still roaming across Bobby’s back, the other clutching desperately at the front of his shirt.

Bobby pulls back far enough to sock him hard in the shoulder.

Surprisingly, the pain makes him groan, and they both stare at each other in surprise for a moment.

Then the tension snaps and Bobby’s grinding his hips against John’s, and John wants to, needs to, _has to_ kiss him again.

It isn’t long before he’s working a hand into Bobby’s pants, because this might be his only chance to have a piece of Bobby, and if he only has one chance he might as well take every damn thing he can get.

It’s an awkward angle—or maybe it’s a regular angle and John’s just not used to it, because contrary to what he likes to tell people he doesn’t really have that much more experience than Bobby does—but John keeps at it. Judging by the way Bobby thrusts his hips...he likes it.

The kiss is still a deep, searing thing that makes him feel like he’s drowning, and he’s surprised to find he can multi-task with ease. Suck it, middle school guidance counselor who’d told him he had a one-track mind.

He’s impressed by Bobby’s use of tongue despite his supposed inexperience, and he wonders if maybe something changed since they kissed the first time, so long ago it feels like a year has passed, if Bobby’s been practicing with someone else.

He doesn’t get a chance to explore that particular thread of jealousy, however, because suddenly his lap is empty and his mouth feels numb.

By the time his eyes have opened, Bobby’s across the room, red in the face like he always is, and breathing heavily. His pants are still unbuttoned, but he doesn’t seem to notice.

“Stop doing that.” Bobby orders him. John shrugs.

“ _I_ only did it the one time.” He says, as if reminding Bobby of his compliance was somehow helpful. Bobby ignores him.

“This isn’t happening, John, I mean it. _Stop_.” Bobby runs a shaky hand through his hair, making it stand up even wilder than before. “Just—I’ll see you at lunch, okay?”

Bobby races out the door, a sight John’s getting familiar with.

He stands and paces around the room, clenching and unclenching his fists as he tries to get his breathing under control. He doesn’t care, it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t feel anything for Bobby. They aren’t even really friends anymore. It doesn’t matter.

“ _Fuck_.” He hisses, lighter sputtering to life between his fingers.

He’s seething in a way he’s never seethed before, so it’s no real surprise when he sends a fireball spinning at the wall. It looks better scorched anyway.

 

**BURNING UP ALL THE OXYGEN  
**

 

John skips Piotr’s party.

It’s stupid and petty and childish, but he wants to think they miss him.

He’s pretty sure Jubilee goes, if only because he didn’t, but he’s not sure he knows her well enough to guess about her actions anymore. Probably his fault.

Although he tells himself it’s not, the fact is about ninety percent of why he doesn’t go is because he wants to keep avoiding Bobby like the plague. It’s easier on both of them that way, because Bobby’s the kind of guy to want to talk a topic to death, and John just doesn’t have it in him to try. Definitely his fault. He knows where his shortcomings are, and emotional connection is one of them.

Avoiding Bobby means he can’t hang out in their room, though, and he finds himself pacing the upper floor of the mansion near the library. He’s never actually gone in of his own free will, because the books there all belong to the Professor, and John doesn’t have a good track record with keeping other people’s belongings in good shape.

But he likes walking past and knowing it’s there.

He runs into Summers in the hallway on his fifth trip past the library. The older man looks tired, though it’s admittedly difficult to tell with the sunglasses on.

“John.” Summers says in greeting as he passes. “Can’t sleep?”

“No.” The word comes out sullen and angry. John folds his arms over his chest and tries to look bored. Might as well own it.

“Why aren’t you at the party?” Summers asks. He’s trying, bless his heart, but it’s annoying watching him try to act like a real person when he’s so _bad_ at it. “I just stopped by a few minutes ago to give Piotr my gift, but –”

“No offense, _Cyclops_ , but unless you’re here to tell me I’m off probation, I don’t really want to know anything from you.” John says, because he's feeling particularly self-destructive tonight, and he's already benched anyway, so why not just burn all of his bridges while he’s at it?

Summers’s brow furrows deeper. “Is there something you need to talk to me about, John?”

It's impossible to tell if the concern is genuine, or something Summers is putting on to trick him into complacency. John scowls back, refusing to answer until he's figured out the game.

Summers sighs. “You seem pretty angry, and trust me when I say that explosive powers and unchecked anger rarely go well together.”

John gets the feeling he'd be rubbing his eyes in exasperation if it wouldn't unseat his glasses. Too bad John doesn't really care.

“Didn’t I say I don’t want to talk to you? Piss off. I’m trying to—what’s that crap you and the professor are always peddling? _Convene with my inner self and regain my sense of calm_ , or whatever. Butt the fuck out.” John says. He's starting to think his ability to hold a grudge should be in a book of world records or something.

“I’m sorry, John. I didn't realize you would take this so personally. Putting you on probation wasn’t meant to be a punishment, but you six clearly weren’t ready to be out in the field, working together and taking orders. You need more time. It’s just responsible leadership.” Summers says. It’s bullshit, is what it is.

Summers and Logan charge into battle headfirst while mid-argument sometimes, and Doctor Grey brings her messed up inability to choose between her husband and _The Wolverine_ wherever they go. Getting lectured by such a pillar of integrity gets under John’s skin.

“Rogue and I saved some kid’s life, okay? I think we deserve a little more than getting lumped in with Jubilee and Theresa just because they went MIA on a mission we were also a part of. What’s that supposed to teach us, exactly? All or nothing? If your teammate fucks up you all get punished, there’s no prizes for the ones who made it through anyway?” John steams, lighter clenched in the fist he’s hidden in his pocket.

This is exactly why he'd never wanted to be a part of a team, why he'd thought working together was so pointless. Getting punished for someone else's mistakes was not worth it, no matter what the others seemed to think.

“You’re just proving my point right now. You care more about the fact that you ‘ _won’_ than you do about the lives you saved. Do you even know the kid’s name? Or where he is right now? None of you have asked about him since you got back.” Scott retorts, mouth set in a hard line. “And yes, by the way. It is _all or nothing_. Because in real life that’s what you get. You either help your friends along and let them help you, or you all fail together, because you didn’t work as a team.”

John opens his mouth to argue, ready for some sarcastic comment to spill out, but nothing comes. What Summers is saying...it kind of makes sense. John doesn’t have to like it, he doesn’t even have to agree with it, but he kind of gets where Scott’s coming from. It was more of that blah blah _lift people up instead of cutting them down_ blah blah blah crap the Professor was always talking about.

Maybe that shit works in theory, inside the safe walls of Xavier’s School, but out in the real world it was every mutant for himself. Kill or be killed. All of that cliched action hero dialogue that the optimists liked to pretend was just cheesy movie bullshit.

In the real world, your team was yourself.

And as for the rest of Summers’s argument--so what? What did it matter if he hasn't checked in on the kid, it wasn’t his job to check in on the wellbeing of every single damaged person who showed up on the mansion doorstep. If it were, he’d never get a moment of peace.

John just snorts.

“Sure, whatever, _teach_. Allotted lecture time completed for the week, do you need me to fill out a card indicating I’ve been thoroughly and properly chastised? Will you leave me alone now?” John asks, actually considering ducking to the library to hide. To hell with other people’s belongings, he wants out of this conversation.

Summers looks like he wants to stay and talk more, because the guy is wordier than one of those fancy dictionaries with all the extra words, so John glared harder. Summers seems to deflate a bit, accepting defeat more gracefully than John would have expected.

“Fine. But me leaving doesn't mean I’ve changed my mind. You're not ready.” Scott says it with finality as he disappears down the long hallway, like he thinks John actually cares. Which he doesn’t. Because the X-Men are stupid, and he’d never even really cared about being a part of the team.

The only thing is, it’s much harder to be a part of things and have it taken away than it is to never have it at all.

 

* * *

 

John wakes up to total silence. He’d finally trudged back to their room around three AM when he realized that it was likely Bobby would be crashing with Piotr after the party, but that doesn’t mean sleep has been easy. He’s always been a light sleeper, but tonight….

He’s not actually sure what woke him in the first place because Bobby’s not in the room, and there are no obvious noises coming from the hall. With the number of students who sneak out of their rooms on a nightly basis, it’s uncommon to hear silence from the halls.

That’s clue number one that something is wrong.

He squints around the room, not sure whether he’s rooting for something to be wrong or not, because he’s always loved chaos, but sleep is quickly becoming his new best friend.

“Bobby?” He croaks, like he might have somehow missed the other body in the room. There’s no answer.

It’s probably nothing. He wakes up in the middle of the night all the time for a variety of reasons, including nightmares. Actually, he decides, this was probably just a nightmare he didn’t remember having. Those happened, right?

He lays back down like he’s actually going to be able to go back to sleep now, forcing his eyelids shut over the crusty grit that formed there during sleep. He will go back to sleep, he will go back to sleep, he will—

_BANG_.

It’s not a loud noise, particularly, but it’s a noise, and it’s not a good one. Nothing good ever comes after a bang.

From downstairs he hears a muffled scream and then a thud—and _shit_ , if that’s not the most ominous thing he’s heard all day. He jumps out of bed and races out into the hall in his bare feet, half-heartedly hoping he’s going to see one of the kids laying on the floor with a scraped knee or something, but knowing something much worse is happening.

He’s just reached the stairwell when the disconcerting silence is broken.

It’s like a damn breaking. Loud chopper blades begin to whir above them, and the heavy sounds of boots stomping across the ceiling follows. The frantic sound of kids looking for their friends and asking questions floats up from the lower floor. John can hear voices yelling orders from the floor above. He can’t count without a visual, but it sounds like too many to take on by himself.

His mind goes to Bobby and the others, probably still asleep in the rec room or something. He curses his friends for being like petrified wood when it came to sleeping heavily. Gunshots ring out around him from the guns of men in military tactical gear as he charges for the common areas. Several people ask him what’s going on as he passes, but he doesn’t stop. He has no answers for them.

“ _Have you seen Rogue_ ?” Suddenly John’s face to face with Bobby, also barefoot and covered in broken pieces of wood. He seems fine, though, standing in the kitchen doorway confused and afraid—but who isn’t? _Thank fuck,_ John thinks. He can’t do this without Bobby.

He shakes his head. Rogue is the last of his concern. But she’s clearly the first thing on Bobby’s mind.

“Come on!” Bobby yells, taking off running in the opposite direction.

It’s madness; confusion and fear zipping through the air like miniature bolts of lightning. They can barely hear anything over the noise, and John’s pretty sure they’re about to die, but at least they’re all going down together, right?

How’s that for teamwork, _Cyclops_?

John’s nearly ready to send a massive fireball spiraling through the house to end them on their own terms by the time they find Rogue, who finds Logan, and then they’re escaping down a passageway that John hadn’t known existed. All without checking on _anyone_ else.

Fuck if John cares about all the whiny kids in the mansion, but their _friends_ had been back there. Jubilee and Kitty--even Piotr, who could handle himself with ease but who could also easily be taken down when trying to help the wrong person at the wrong time.

The part of John that’s gone soft yells for them to go back and check on the rest of the students, just to know if his friends are alright, but the part of him that’s been raised to run at the first sign of danger fights back too strongly for him to voice objections at taking off into the night. In the seat next to him, Bobby’s suspiciously quiet.

There’s silence as they drive through the Westchester countryside, the mood in the car heavy with tension. It’s different than their last mission (and not just because he’s still technically on probation, and he just _knows_ Summers in going to have a bitch-fit when he finds out they’ve been out of the mansion without permission). This time it’s _their_ friends who might be dead, who might be tortured, not some faceless strangers in the middle of the city, and it’s clear that none of them can stop thinking about that fact.

This trend of waking up to chaos in the middle of the night is really starting to grate on John.

The quiet conversation from the front seat brings John out of his fog just in time to hear the last thing he wants to hear.

“—Know somewhere safe we can go until we hear from Storm and Jean.” Bobby’s saying quietly to Logan, and the expression on his face can mean only one thing: they’re heading into hell. Also known as Bobby’s parents’ house in Long Island. Bobby shakes off Rogue’s hand when she reaches to comfort him, but he doesn’t pull away from the subtle press of John’s knee against his. Small victories.

It’s a long drive, and the car is thankfully silent for most of it, but that just leaves more room to think about what’s going on.

John feels naked without his shoes, without a jacket, and he realizes with a start that they’re about to go on a mission without any uniforms. Or any clothes at all, really.

And if John thought it was bad going on a mission in a suit that didn’t fit quite right before, it was ten times worse heading out into the great unknown without any suit at all.

He settles back into his seat, intent on getting some sleep before they arrive. Bobby’s family is notoriously difficult, and they won’t be less so on two hours of sleep. His eyes droop closed almost instantly, Scott’s dark warning that he _wasn’t ready_ ringing in his ears.

 

* * *

 

It’s bright out when he wakes again, the car just pulling into the driveway of a cheery little suburban house. He thanks whatever internal mechanism he has that woke him up right before the car stopped. Bobby shaking him awake would have been far too awkward.

There’s no one home—the first lucky break they’ve caught all day—and Logan makes quick work of the fridge while Bobby takes John and Rogue upstairs to get changed. He’s mostly positive that Logan won’t destroy anything if they leave him alone for too long, but it’s not his house, so what does he care?

He makes a beeline for Bobby’s room the second he’s cleared the stairs, partly because he wants Rogue to know that he’s been here before and knows his way around, partly because he doesn’t want to get stuck watching the awkward flirtation that he knows is coming as untouchable Rogue strips down to her skivvies in Bobby’s house, and partly because he’s getting tired of walking around without shoes on and just wants to goddamn _change_.

Bobby’s room is pretty much how he remembers it, because when had his friend been back here to change it since they visited last—briefly during the summer when Bobby’d wanted to visit Coney Island—and he doesn’t waste any time getting changed.

There are a couple shirts neatly tucked in Bobby’s drawer that he thinks might have belonged to him at one point, because unless Bobby once went through a secret grunge phase where he wore a lot of thumb holes in his sleeves, he’s way too preppy to wear the clothes John’s found. Besides, with John’s notoriously terrible laundry skills it would almost be more surprising if Bobby _hadn’t_ accidentally gotten ahold of some of his shirts.

He grabs the least _Bobby_ one he can find, as well as a pair of old track pants, and calls it good. Rogue might be complaining about the lack of fashionable options right now, but not John. He knows their friends are probably dying right now. He’s just glad to find shoes.

Several old _participant awards_ for things like little league baseball and school soccer line the shelves in Bobby’s room. It’s interesting to see all his crap from so long ago preserved here, like a little shrine to the perfect son Mrs. Drake is lamenting the loss of. John’s almost glad Bobby isn’t here so he can look without having to justify it.

He wastes several minutes poking around in Bobby’s crap, chuckling to himself at the half-cleaned nature of the room. Sure, it looks clean, to the naked eye, but there’s laundry shoved on the closet floor and ancient homework tucked under the bed. Back home Bobby’s the cleaner of the two of them because he’s used to having to tidy up. John’s always been more open about his mess. This is the cleaning job of someone who does it out of obligation and not enjoyment. Some things never change.

It’s stupid, but he hates how well he knows his roommate. The smiling pictures of Bobby with old friends, candid’s of him with some dark-haired girl who is clearly an old girlfriend or crush or something mock him from the walls. He suddenly feels like he’s intruding on memories he’s not meant to be a part of, and he’s never felt that way about Bobby’s life before. He kind of hates that, too.

John yanks a pair of jeans for Bobby out of the drawer to his left and leaves the room quickly.

Bobby’s right where John knew he would be, hovering around Rogue in the guest bedroom while she changes into something John’s grandmother wouldn’t be caught dead in. But the air between them is chilly, and not just because Rogue’s determinedly not meeting Bobby’s eyes. Her breath puffs out in a cloud of white when she exhales, and— _oh_. Of course.

John steps on the floorboard he knows lets out a shuddering creak and leans against the doorway of the guest room with a smirk, arms folded over the jeans he’s carrying.

“I see you got all dressed up,” He says, eyes fixed on Rogue. She’s worrying her lower lip with her teeth, her body language _screaming_ discomfort. He gets it. He’d be uncomfortable if he were staring at himself the way he’s looking at her. Her eyes flick to Bobby, guilt flashing there, and he’s forced to reconsider. Maybe she just feels bad for nabbing a bit of his powers. Wuss.

“Yeah, I found some of my grandmother’s clothes in the attic, I thought the gloves would be better than long sleeves.” Bobby says. It confirms for John that Bobby’s family has horrible taste, not that he needed more proof.

Bobby’s gaze is fixed on him so intently that he just knows the other boy wants to say something to him. He doesn’t look at Bobby as he tosses the pants to him, lip curling up in a cruel kind of smirk.

“I’ll let you two get back to, uh-- _changing_ , then.” He says casually and pushes off the doorframe, like the words don’t bother him at all. Which they don’t. Because he doesn’t care what Bobby does or who he kisses.

“Wait up.” Bobby calls quietly, jeans gripped tightly in his hand. His knuckles have turned white with the force of it. John tries not to watch him warily from the corner of his eye.

“What.” John says when they’ve stepped into Bobby’s bedroom, because none of the other rooms felt appropriate to stop in, and there was no way in hell he was having whatever conversation Bobby clearly wanted to have within earshot of Rogue.

“I, um, I don’t know if you saw what happened back there, but…” Bobby trails off, sitting on the edge of his bed next to John, and gesturing with a hand like he can adequately describe what happened with hand-puppetry.

“I saw enough.” John says. He’s adopted his favorite two parts bored, one-part unimpressed expression.

“Oh. I’m sorry.” Bobby says. The words surprise John. Bobby’s never apologized to him before, he’s never had a reason to.

“Don’t be _sorry_ , Frosty. You should get back out there and kiss her again. Go for it. Just don’t let her drain you or anything.” John’s going for supportive bro-friend, but it falls dismally short of his intended tone. He sounds a little like someone’s strangling him while telling him to pretend to be happy about it.

Bobby ignores his words.

“I know you like me.” Bobby says.

And the world doesn’t end. And Bobby doesn’t look disgusted. And no one appears out of thin air to shoot him down for daring to have feelings for his best friend. It all feels incredibly anticlimactic.

And John’s fucking tired, okay, he’s been through a crazy fucking night and morning, and he just wants to have some breakfast and maybe take a nap. He’s not in the mood for a heart to fucking heart with the guy he’s only now in the face of potential death been able to admit he’s pretty much head over heels for.

He’s silent for a long time, staring at one of the trophies on Bobby’s desk. It’s another player-of-the-month award that looks like it’s been popped out of a generic dollar store mold and handed out to a hundred different kids. John kind of gets it, though. He’d give Bobby a million player-of-the-month awards if he could.

“Yeah.” He agrees. He’s got no intention of saying anything else unless Bobby asks him a direct question.

“Yeah,” Bobby echoes. “Cool. Okay. That’s great. Awesome. Wow. _Shit_.” His voice climbs higher and higher towards frantic as he talks. John wants to slap a hand over his mouth, but that would require moving.

“So you’re panicking.” John says conversationally, like it’s another comment about the weather or something. Bobby nods.

“Cool.” John says flatly. Maybe he’s not too tired to be a bit of a dick. “Don’t like, worry about it anything. I’m fucking dealing with it. Just give me a week or two and it’ll be out of my system.” He shrugs like it’s that easy.

Bobby wouldn’t know, Bobby will believe him. Bobby’s never had to fight to get someone out of his system before.

He’s not expecting a stuttering protest.

“No no, you don’t h--I mean, it’s okay, I don’t mind. It’s fine. You don’t have to do anything.” Bobby says. In and of itself, it’s not that big a deal. Bobby’s a self-sacrificing idiot and he’d definitely suffer in silence if he thought it made John happy, but when John chances a glance over, Bobby’s cheeks are the same shade of red they'd been when John kissed him in their room at the mansion. _Fuck_ , could it be--?

Is it too much to hope for?

He squints at Bobby. “Is there something you wanna tell me, Bobby?”

Bobby scratches the back of his neck and shrugs, eyes flicking across John’s face. His gaze feels warm.

“Okay, whatever. We don’t have to talk about it. Ever. We can just keep doing what we've been doing, arguing and ignoring each other, kissing girls...” John says with a shrug. It’s a gamble, but it’s a risk he has to take. He couldn’t handle just asking Bobby straight up.

Bobby lets out a huge gush of air, mouth set in a grimace. “I think I really like you, and I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do about that.” Bobby says, eyes as wide as saucers where they’re fixed to John’s face. The air around them has dropped several degrees, a good sign Bobby’s nervous. As if the blushing and stuttering hadn’t been clue enough.

It kind of feels like opening a Christmas gift when you already knew what the contents would be. John had suspected Bobby liked guys in some capacity for _weeks_ , because you don't share a kiss like that without being affected at least a little, but having Bobby actually _say_ that he likes John specifically means more than anything he's ever said before.

“Kiss me.” John says. It’s softer than the first time he demanded it.

Unlike last time, Bobby’s quick to comply.

It’s easily their best kiss of the three, quite possibly because Bobby’s admitted that he actually wants to be doing this. What a big difference a couple steps out of the closet can make.

John tries to work everything he’s feeling, everything he’s thinking, into the kiss. He’s never been good with words, so hopefully Bobby will understand this. Judging by the eager way Bobby kisses back, his message was a success.

Bobby’s hands are cupping his face, and John briefly feels a victory over Rogue for having gotten something she could never have. But all that does is remind him of the fact that Bobby had been kissing Rogue mere minutes ago, and he pulls back with a frown.

“ _Oh_ ,” Bobby says breathlessly, eyes still half-closed like his brain needs a minute to reboot. When he finally focuses on John, his expressions morphs to a more serious look. Maybe because he reads the uncertainty in John’s eyes, or maybe he just knows John well enough to guess what he’s thinking.

Bobby smiles a little uncomfortably. “Um, you’re going to ask me about Rogue, aren’t you?”

John just shrugs.

“Okay. Well, this is awkward.” Bobby says. John can’t help but privately agree. “She doesn’t like me.”

“Wow, alert the media.” John says dryly. Bobby’s dancing around the topic like John knew he would.

“Okay, sorry. Can I start again? _I_ don’t like Rogue. I mean, I like her, but not romantically. Not in a _I want to kiss her and never stop_ kind of way. I think I was...maybe a little in denial.” Bobby mutters the last part. He looks so uncomfortable that John wants to let him off the hook. He can deal with his weird gay-panic guilt later. John really wants to kiss him again.

“Yeah, okay. Whatever, Icicle. Just don’t kiss her again.” John says. Bobby smiles and kisses him instead.

 

* * *

 

Logan comes upstairs a few minutes later to tell them that he made contact with Storm and Jean and found out what happened the night before, but he doesn’t come into Bobby’s room. John thanks whatever intuition or sixth sense the older man has that stops him from busting right in like he normally would have.

Bobby jerks away with a sheepish grin, but he keeps his hand tangled in John’s shirt, so it doesn’t feel like a terrible loss.

They all trudge downstairs and make a quick breakfast for the road, bickering over whether they should bring any food for the X-Men or not. John’s firmly on the side of not, because he doesn’t want to do any more work than necessary, and they can stop for MacDonald’s or something if they’re really hungry later.

Rogue tries to take his sandwich for that comment to show him how it feels, but he just laughs and jumps out of the way

That’s when it all goes to shit. Because of course it all has to go to shit when they’re about to make it out of this okay.

Bobby’s parents come home, and they’re somehow even less pleasant than John remembers them being. They whine and complain about the time and pout about how they never see Bobby. They watch John with suspicion, like they think he’s about to run off with their good silverware, and they question Logan like they think he might secretly be an axe-murderer.

Which he probably is, but they have no reason to think that.

Bobby’s snotty little brother runs upstairs the moment Bobby reveals his mutation, which is just icing on the cake, and John wants to torch them all. How does he tell a group of bratty humans that the strangers in their home are more family to their son they’ve ever been?

There’s no way to do it that doesn’t end in Bobby freezing him out for a month.

Things get worse from there.

The police show up, and John’s ninety percent sure it was the bitchy mom who called until someone yells for Bobby’s brother, and actually _yeah_ , that makes sense. What a spoiled brat.

There’s yelling, and orders are screamed, and they’re all down on the ground just waiting to be killed because that’s apparently what they do now, and Logan can’t put his claws down because of fucking course he can’t, they’re attached to his body, and then he gets _shot_.

There’s more noise, and it sounds like Rogue starts crying, and the yelling gets louder, because now there’s been hostile contact.

John’s seen the news, he knows how this goes. One down, three to go. They aren’t getting out of this alive. Nobody was stupid enough to kill one mutant and leave the rest of them alive.

His lighter whooshes open--finally, fucking _finally_ , because it’s been AGES since he got to use them, what with his injured hand, and being banned from the danger room, and nearly passing out during their last mission--and he actually feels like he can do something for once.

He feels powerful again, if only for a moment.

The cops start yelling as he shoots a giant fireball towards one of the empty cars, and it explodes with a satisfying crash. Bobby yelps something from the ground near his ankle, but he’s buzzing too hard to listen. He’s going to save them, he’s going to protect them, it’s all finally okay.

He thinks he’s starting to understand why Bobby’s been so obsessed with being a hero.

But then the fire is gone. He spins to Rogue immediately, ready to blow up in her face about stealing his powers again. But it’s Bobby standing there looking guilty, hand covered in ice.

“I can’t let you do this. I can’t let you be this person.” Bobby tells him.

“I’m saving us, back the fuck out, Drake.” John orders, gearing up another fireball. This one is meant for the cops themselves, those assholes who think it’s okay to shoot people’s professors and kidnap their friends when they aren’t even doing anything.

But Bobby shoots that one down, too. “Don’t make me fight you, John. I don’t want to fight you.” He’s pleading now, but John’s too far gone to care.

He’s never felt this much power before.

Twin towers of flame shoot into the yard at his command, scorching everything in their path. It’s a high John’s never been on before, and he never wants it to stop. If this is what being a hero is, he’ll join the X-Men tomorrow.

“ _ENOUGH_!” Bobby roars, and all of a sudden the entire yard is covered is ice. Bobby’s ice.

“This stops _now_.” He grabs the lighter out of John’s hand and freezes it shut. Without it, and without the fire he’d been wielding, he feels smaller and more human than ever.

Without it, he can see the full extent of the damage he’d done. It kind of terrifies him that he let himself get so carried away.

The cops have been frozen to the ground by their feet, terrified expressions almost funny, but they’ve dropped their guns, so John ignores them.

“I--I’m sor--” He tries wildly, swallowing hard. He wants to grab Bobby’s hand, but he knows Bobby wouldn’t welcome the touch.

“ _Don’t._ ” Bobby says, staring hard at the unforgiving faces of his parents in the living room window. “Just don't.” He sits down on the steps with his face in his hands.

 

* * *

  


When it’s all over, after Bobby’s parents have locked themselves fearfully in the master bedroom and the cops have retreated for backup, Logan asks them if they want to go back to the mansion, or if they want to get in the plane with him and help save the other kids.

Bobby shakes his head sadly, exhaustion wearing heavy on him.

John shoots him a furtive glance and nudges his arm with an elbow. “What, here’s your chance to play hero, to rescue everybody and prove that you can be an X-Man. Take it.”

Bobby sighs. Despite the change of clothes, he still smells like smoke and ash, a few splinters of wood still glinting in his hair.

“I don’t want to be a hero. I’m sixteen. I just want to go home.” Bobby says. “You were right.”

Except John’s not so sure he was.

He's been selfish today, leaving the mansion without checking on his friends, and that had left him on edge, self-hatred brimming up in all sorts of unhealthy ways. It's a direct contrast to the way he'd felt after their first mission, after he rescued an entire city block and saved lives. That had felt unstoppable.

John’s pretty sure he's started valuing other people’s lives ahead of his own at some point over the past two months without even realizing it. Maybe not a lot of people, but it's something. It's a step closer to the person Bobby’s always believed he could be.

John's also pretty sure he can't go back to being the self-preserving asshole he used to be if he ever intends to be good enough for Bobby.

_Shit_.

He's gotta be the hero now--and fuck does he still hate that word.

He makes a decision then, one he’s not completely sure why he decided to make. But Bobby’s his responsibility now, and for some reason Bobby thinks John wants him to be bitter and angry and disenchanted by the idea of saving the world.

For some reason Bobby thinks his optimism is something John tolerates about him, not a big part of why John likes him so much.

Probably because John told him that repeatedly, but whatever. He's going to fix that now.

“No.” John says.

“ _No?_ ” Bobby asks, making a face at Rogue, who isn't paying him any attention.

John smiles. It's not a friendly smile. “No. I'm not right. I'm actually usually wrong about shit, you know that. You're gonna save lives. We're gonna save lives.We're gonna be X-Men, and save the world, and be best friends with everyone or whatever you've always been so excited about. Come on.”

He hesitates only a moment before he jogs after Logan. It takes all the willpower he has to keep from looking back at Bobby, to keep himself from checking if Bobby’s following, but he pulls through. This has to work.

“Hold up,” He says when he reaches Logan. “I’m coming with you.”

Logan snorts. “You are.” It’s not a question. That paired with the slow way he assesses John sets John on edge, but he stands his ground.

“I want to save the others. They don’t deserve what’s happening, and I don’t got that much going on today.” He knows The Wolverine can see his concern through his bravado, but the point isn’t convincing Logan. The point is convincing Bobby.

Logan watches him warily for a moment, but eventually tilts his head in a welcome gesture and stomps onto the plane. _Fucking finally_ , John thinks. It’s not like he's in a place to turn down the extra help if it’s being offered.

It takes almost a full minute, but then Bobby’s dropping down into the seat next to him, tentative grin on his face. “I’m not letting you save everyone by yourself. You won't win the competition that easily.” Bobby declares with a crooked grin. He’s obviously hesitant, shoulders tense and forehead creased with worry, but he’s here. He’s making a big gesture following John when neither of them is sure they want to be here.

Perhaps that’s why it surprises John so much when Bobby shyly slides his hand into John’s, fingers linking loosely between their seats. When he looks at Bobby, the other man is focused intently on the seat in front of him, cheeks bright pink, but Bobby doesn’t pull their hands apart.

It's progress, and John’ll be damned if he doesn’t celebrate it a little, even if only in the privacy of his own head.

 

**OF FIRE, OF ICE  
**

They return to the mansion in the early morning, exhausted and worn down but triumphant. The other students had been taken by some anti-mutant hate group that John had never heard of (and wasn’t that just the icing on the cake--finding yourself at the wrong end of a hate group, but you don’t even get one of the good ones, you get some shitty band of nobodies no one had ever heard of before), and they had all been quite grateful to be released.

From what John could tell, they all seemed uninjured, but he’d really only had eyes for Kitty and Jubilee when the team had broken in.

Although Bobby holds his hand the entire plane ride back to the mansion, fingers cramped together and hidden between the seats they’re sitting in, he drops it the moment the wheels go down. John works hard to mask the disappointment he feels over it, but he’s pretty sure Bobby notices anyway.

It’s not like it’s a big deal. He’s never been a touchy-feely person anyway. Holding hands would just make him look like an idiot.

The front hall is crowded when they walk in, kids reuniting with friends and siblings, and teachers milling about discussing how to fix the damage done to the school. It’s probably going to take a while, because this is Xavier’s and they can’t just hire a repairman to come do it in a weekend.

As long as John doesn’t have to be involved in the clean-up, he’s fine with whatever they decide to do.

Someone bumps into him as he and Bobby walks through the over-filled room, startling him to the point that he has his hand in his pocket before he realizes he’d reached for his lighter. He’s beyond tired, and he just wants to go upstairs and take a nap. Unfortunately, Bobby seems intent on checking in with each and every kid who’s ever attended the mansion, and they get trapped in several meaningless conversations before John can even open his mouth to say that he wants to go.

He tunes out the mind-numbing chatter-- Bobby doesn’t seem to notice his disinterest, content to talk twice as much to fill John’s silence--and takes careful inventory of all of his friends.

Theresa’s near the door, arms around some redheaded man John’s never met. He looks like he could be a older brother or an uncle maybe. She seems relatively alright, save for a nasty bruise on her forehead. That’s a positive, at least.

Summers and Doctor Grey are standing close, talking to each other with their heads bent low, it looks intimate and private, and John wants to yell at them to get a room. He’s surprised to see how human Summers looks with his wrinkled civilian clothes on and worry lines creasing his forehead. It’s not a bad look for him.

John scans for Piotr, worry briefly spiking in his stomach before he catches a glimpse of the massive Russian. Piotr seems to be attempting to hug Rogue while she sidesteps his grasp like her life depends on it. He finally catches her, and John can see her shoulders tense in preparation for the hug. Rogue looks at him from around Piotr’s arm and makes a bewildered face. He shrugs at her. He doesn’t know why Piotr’s like this, either.

Eventually she gives in and embraces Piotr reluctantly, grinning a little sheepishly at John. He wants to laugh. The metal man is either completely oblivious to her discomfort or he’s just ignoring it because he knows she needs a hug. John’s not sure which seems more in character for him.

Instead, John smiles back at her, surprised when his mouth curves into a genuine expression instead of the slightly haughty, triumphant grin he’d been expecting. After all--he’d done it. He’d won. But there’s no reason to be angry with her now, no purpose to jealousy. Bobby was his whether she liked it or not.

If he were being honest with himself, he knew she'd never really cared much about Bobby’s crush on her anyway, so she probably wouldn’t have much to say on the development.

Strange how easily the burning feeling in his chest disappeared when he could still feel Bobby’s lips against his.

From the corner of his eye he can see Jubilee and Kitty walking towards them. The second he makes any sort of acknowledgment of them, Kitty takes off running past past Piotr and Rogue to toss her arms first around Bobby and then around John himself, and he has to take pause to wonder when they got close enough for that kind of affection to be commonplace. Jubilee stands awkwardly to the side watching them, arms hugged tightly around herself like she feels like she’s intruding.

John’s never been great with unexpected touch, something Bobby has to know, so it’s not entirely surprising when he feels Bobby’s hand move to rest lightly on his elbow. It’s an unexpected comfort, but one he appreciates nonetheless. He’s coming to appreciate everything Bobby does these days.

Kitty’s beaming when she pulls back, dark hair still messy and sweater stained, but clearly glad to be home. “Thanks you guys. For...everything. Thank you.”

Jubilee nods her agreement a little shyly, eyes fixed to her shoes. She still hasn’t said anything, and John wonders if she ever will. He wonders if Bobby’s even noticed her absence these past months.

“Hey, yeah, of course.” Bobby says to Kitty, body language going all _aw shucks_. It’s a routine John hates, but he’s pretty sure Bobby doesn’t even realize he does it. “We couldn’t leave our friends out there alone like that.”

John expects Jubilee to argue that, but she just gives him a little smile. Next to her, Kitty folds her arms and nods her head in an overly serious manner. “Nope. You saved us because you’re _the best_.”

John snorts. “He’s _kind of okay_ , you mean.” He agrees, of course, that Bobby is the best, both because he’s Bobby and because John’s kind of obligated to agree now that their relationship has shifted. That doesn’t mean he’s going to to admit it.

“You both are.” Jubilee speaks up, voice still quiet but certain. “Kind of okay, I mean. Or whatever.”

Bobby smiles at her, and John feels his own face morphing into something that somewhat resembles a grin. Kitty looks between the three of them, beaming. It’s a small thing, a tiny concession, but it feels like progress. Huge progress.

John glances at Bobby and is surprised to find him already staring back, wearing a fond expression.

“Yeah,” John agrees. “We kind of are okay, aren’t we?”

**Author's Note:**

> A few end-of-story comments: As this was probably not clear in the story, this was set in the bright future seen at the end of DoFP where the world is better and everyone was alive. In my mind means that none of the Alkali Lake stuff happened in X2 because Apocalypse's timeline established that the X-Men had already been there and cleared the place out years earlier. It's a complicated and messy timeline that works better if you sort of hand-wave and accept that things are a little vague and maybe don't line up perfectly. I also strayed a lot from Rogue's big-screen personality here because I hate her movie incarnation (so bland and lifeless, what happened there?), but that might not be immediately obvious because the story comes from John's rather limited (and unreliable if I do say so myself) perspective. Her actions may sometimes come across as a little contradictory or confusing because of this, but I hope y'all were able to read between the lines anyway. Regardless, I hope you enjoyed the story, thanks for reading!!


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